Victor Victorious

VICTOR VICTORIOUS
BY CECIL STARR JOHNS
LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXV
THE ANCHOR PRESS, LTD., TIPTREE, ESSEX, ENGLAND
TO IRMA MY WIFE
AUTHOR'S NOTE
This book was written in the spring of 1913-- fifteen months before the outbreak of the present war.
September , 1915.
VICTOR VICTORIOUS
CHAPTER I
It was a magnificent tree, old and stately; it was, moreover, the first cause of grief that I can remember. Its foliage in summer afforded much shade, and in the mornings when the sun was shining caused patterns to appear on the floor of my nursery; my sorrow was, that I could not fasten the pattern to the floor with tacks, tacks of the ordinary tin variety, which I had procured from goodness only knows where. I tried again and again, weeping bitterly at my want of success. I wept still more bitterly when my nurse returned; but that is a detail which has nothing to do with these memoirs, it is a sacred thing not to be spoken of lightly.
Such is the first of my remembrances, and I was then between three and four years of age. After that, my memories are confused and not particularly interesting, much the same, I daresay, as many millions of children can look back on: childish miseries, mishaps and pleasures, but always of the same place and the same people.