There never was so fascinating a father as mine for a boy anything under eight or ten years old.  He could guess on Saturday whether I should name William Pitt on the Sunday; for, on those occasions, ‘Slender Billy,’ as I hope I am not irreverent in calling him, made up for the dulness of his high career with a raspberry-jam tart, for which, my father told me solemnly, the illustrious Minister had in his day a passion.  If I named him, my father would say, ’W.  P., otherwise S. B., was born in the year so-and-so; now,’ and he went to the cupboard, ’in the name of Politics, take this and meditate upon him.’  The shops being all shut on Sunday, he certainly bought it, anticipating me unerringly, on the Saturday, and, as soon as the tart appeared, we both shouted.  I fancy I remember his repeating a couplet,

              ’Billy Pitt took a cake and a raspberry jam,
               When he heard they had taken Seringapatam.’

At any rate, the rumour of his having done so, at periods of strong excitement, led to the inexplicable display of foresight on my father’s part.

My meditations upon Pitt were, under this influence, favourable to the post of a Prime Minister, but it was merely appetite that induced me to choose him; I never could imagine a grandeur in his office, notwithstanding my father’s eloquent talk of ruling a realm, shepherding a people, hurling British thunderbolts.  The day’s discipline was, that its selected hero should reign the undisputed monarch of it, so when I was for Pitt, I had my tart as he used to have it, and no story, for he had none, and I think my idea of the ruler of a realm presented him to me as a sort of shadow about a pastrycook’s shop.  But I surprised people by speaking of him.  I made remarks to our landlady which caused her to throw up her hands and exclaim that I was astonishing.  She would always add a mysterious word or two in the hearing of my nursemaid or any friend of hers who looked into my room to see me.  After my father had got me forward with instructions on the piano, and exercises in early English history and the book of the Peerage, I became the wonder of the house.  I was put up on a stool to play ‘In my Cottage near a Wood,’ or ’Cherry Ripe,’ and then, to show the range of my accomplishments, I was asked, ‘And who married the Dowager Duchess of Dewlap?’ and I answered, ’John Gregg Wetherall, Esquire, and disgraced the family.’  Then they asked me how I accounted for her behaviour.

‘It was because the Duke married a dairymaid,’ I replied, always tossing up my chin at that.  My father had concocted the questions and prepared me for the responses, but the effect was striking, both upon his visitors and the landlady’s.  Gradually my ear grew accustomed to her invariable whisper on these occasions.  ‘Blood Rile,’ she said; and her friends all said ‘No!’ like the run of a finger down a fiddlestring.