I never could make sure about that Water Baby.  I have seen Babies in water and Babies in bottles; but the Baby in the water was not in a bottle, and the Baby in the bottle was not in water.

My friend who wrote the story of the Water Baby was a very kind man and very clever.  Perhaps he thought I could see as much in the water as he did.  There are some people who see a great deal and some who see very little in the same things.

    When you grow up I dare say you will be one of the great-deal
    seers and see things more wonderful than Water Babies where
    other folks can see nothing.

There is a story of Mohammed that once, rather than disturb a favourite cat, he cut off the sleeve of his robe on which it lay asleep.  Whether in like circumstances my father would have done the same—­had flowing sleeves been a Victorian fashion—­I cannot certainly say, though he once was found similarly dispossessed of his favourite study chair; but he always regarded this anecdote as displaying an agreeable trait in the Prophet.  For he himself was very fond of animals, and, though we seldom kept dogs in London, cats were invariable members of the household.  Apropos of these, a letter may be quoted which was written in 1893 in reply to an inquiry from a journalist who was collecting anecdotes for an article on the Home Pets of Celebrities:—­

A long series of cats has reigned over my household for the last forty years, or thereabouts, but I am sorry to say that I have no pictorial or other record of their physical and moral excellences.

The present occupant of the throne is a large, young, grey Tabby—­Oliver by name.  Not that he is in any sense a protector, for I doubt whether he has the heart to kill a mouse.  However, I saw him catch and eat the first butterfly of the season, and trust that this germ of courage, thus manifested, may develop with age into efficient mousing.

As to sagacity, I should say that his judgment respecting the warmest place and the softest cushion in a room is infallible; his punctuality at meal-times is admirable; and his pertinacity in jumping on people’s shoulders, till they give him some of the best of what is going, indicates great firmness.

XVIII

SOME LETTERS AND TABLE TALK

My father’s letters were seldom without a dash of playfulness or humour somewhere; a thing always fresh and spontaneous, unlike the calculated or laboured playfulness sometimes to be observed in the epistolary touch of literary folk.  A capital example is a note to Matthew Arnold, at whose house he had left his umbrella.  Arnold, it may be added, had recently been critically engaged upon the works of Bishop Wilson:—­

    Look at Bishop Wilson on the sin of covetousness, and then
    inspect your umbrella stand.  You will there see a beautiful
    brown smooth-handled umbrella which is not your property.