Page:Peter Whiffle (1922).djvu/100

 raillery but it seemed to point out the pleasure to be apprehended from pleasant places. He named a cat of the period, a regal yellow short-haired tom, after the Prorege of Arcopia. The house library exhausted, the public library offered further opportunities for browsing and it was there that he made the acquaintance of Gautier, in translation, of course. He also found it possible to procure—though not at the public library—and he devoured with avidity—he has asserted that they had an extraordinary effect in awakening his imagination—Nick Carter, Bertha M. Clay, and Golden Days. For a period of four or five years, in spite of all protests, although he had never heard of the vegetarians, he subsisted entirely on a diet of cookies soaked in hot milk. He had a curious inherent dislike for spinach and it was characteristic of his father that he ordered the dish to appear on the table every day until the boy tasted a morsel. In after life, Peter could never even look at a dish of spinach. He cared nothing at all for outdoor sports. Games of any kind, card or osculatory, he considered nuisances. At a party, while the other children were engaged in the pleasing pastime of post office, he was usually to be found in a corner, reading some book. The companionship of boys and girls of his own age meant very little to him. He liked to talk to older people and found special pleasure in the company of the Reverend Horatio Wallace, a clergyman of the Dutch Reformed