Children! Are they the same the world over – does sexual precocity break out amongst them in certain localities at certain periods, something like an epidemic of measles from which few are immune, while in other places and at other times, they escape unscathed? Certain it is that my own childhood was lived in an atmosphere redolent with sexuality and this despite the fact that my home environment was the best. My parents, indeed, held to the most Puritanical notions and doubtless would have been literally dumbfounded with horror had they ever gotten the slightest hint as to what was taking place almost under their very noses.

Either their own lives had matured under conditions quite different from mine or the passing years had obliterated all remembrance of juvenile deviltry, for assuredly no suspicion as to what was transpiring about them, almost, as I have suggested, close enough to be smelled, ever arose to preoccupy their well- ordered lives during my childhood days.

Confidences exchanged in later years with adult friends indicate that while many went through experiences similar to mine, the lives of others were singularly barren of juvenile romance or precocity. To the lips of the former, therefore, my stories may bring a smile as old memories stir, and they are carried back over the highway of years by the narration of some incident which had a counterpart in their own lives, and to the latter, a sigh of regret at something missed in life.

I do not propose to fill up space with the narration of incidents other than those in which some curious, unique or laughable element justifies their telling. With this brief prelude, I begin my story.

I was born in the year 1900. My birthplace, an English city, with some thirty thousand population. My parents, though not rich, were moderately well off and we lived in the comfortable fashion of the middle class English family. I was an only child and as such was humored to a certain extent, but I was also ruled with disciplinarian firmness, for my father, a grave, silent man, was quick enough to take note of juvenile insubordination, and as quick to chastise it. I held him in great respect, with which was mingled a certain degree of awe.