In the Preface to Vol. I., at pp. 379 and 380, I gave an account of the origination of some of the ideas embodied in the book. A few more such details may perhaps interest my Readers:

I. p. 461. The very peculiar use, here made of a dead mouse, comes from real life. I once found two very small boys, in a garden, playing a microscopic game of `Single-Wicket'. The bat was, I think, about the size of a tablespoon; and the utmost distance attained by the ball, in its most daring flights, was some 4 or 5 yards. The exact length was of course a matter of supreme importance; and it was always carefully measured out (the batsman and the bowler amicably sharing the toil) with a dead mouse!

I. p. 482. The two quasi-mathematical Axioms, quoted by Arthur at p.482 of Vol. I. (`Things that are greater than the same are greater than one another', and `All angles are equal') were actually enunciated, in all seriousness, by undergraduates at a university situated not 100 miles from Ely.

II. p. 549. Bruno's remark (`I can, if I like, &c.') was actually made by a little boy.

II. p. 550. So also was his remark (`I know what it doesn't spell'). And his remark (`I just twiddled my eyes, &c.') I heard from the lips of a little girl, who had just solved a puzzle I had set her.

II. p. 567. Bruno's soliloquy (`For its father, &c.') was actually spoken by a little girl, looking out of the window of a railway-carriage.

II. p. 597. The remark, made by a guest at the dinner-party, when asking for a dish of fruit (`I've been wishing for them, &c.') I heard made by the great Poet-Laureate, whose loss the whole reading-world has so lately had to deplore.

II. p. 506. Bruno's speech, on the subject of the age of `Mein Herr', embodies the reply of a little girl to the question `Is your grandmother an old lady?' `I don't know if she's an old lady,' said this cautious young person; `she's eighty-three.'

II. p. 621. The speech about `Obstruction' is no mere creature of my imagination! It is copied verbatim from the columns of the Standard, and was spoken by Sir William Harcourt, who was, at the time, a member of the `Opposition', at the `National Liberal Club', on July the 16th, 1890.

II. p. 669. The Professor's remark, about a dog's tail, that `it doesn't bite at that end', was actually made by a child, when warned of the danger he was incurring by pulling the dog's tail.

II. p. 685. The dialogue between Sylvie and Bruno, which occupies lines 29 to 34, is a verbatim report (merely substituting `cake' for `penny') of a dialogue overheard between two children.

One story in this Volume--`Bruno's Picnic'--I can vouch for as suitable for telling to children, having tested it again and again; and, whether my audience has been a dozen little girls in a village-school, or some thirty or forty in a London drawing-room, or a hundred in a High School, I have always found them earnestly attentive and keenly appreciative of such fun as the story supplied.

May I take this opportunity of calling attention to what I flatter myself was a successful piece of name- coining, at p. 400 of Vol. I. Does not the name `Sibimet' fairly embody the character of the Sub-Warden? The gentle Reader has no doubt observed what a singularly useless article in a house a brazen trumpet is, if you simply leave it lying about, and never blow it!