By way of commencement I must tell you something of myself and my antecedents. My name is Gilbert Pennethorne; my mother was a Tregenna. and if you remember the old adage-"By Tre-, Pol- and Pen- You may know the Cornishmen," you will see that I may claim to be Cornish to the backbone. My father, as far back as I can recollect him, was a highly respectable, but decidedly choleric, gentleman of the old school, who clung to his black silk stock and high-rolled collar long after both had ceased to be the fashion, and for a like reason had for modern innovations much the same hatred as the stagecoachman was supposed to entertain for railway engines. Many were the absurd situations this animosity led him into. Of his six children-two boys and four girls-I was perhaps the least fortunate in his favour. For some reason or another-perhaps because I was the youngest, and my advent into the world had cost my mother her life-he could scarcely bring himself at any time to treat me with ordinary civility. In consequence I never ventured near him unless I was absolutely compelled to do so. I went my way, he went his-and as a result we knew but little of each other, and liked what we saw still less. Looking back upon it now, I can see that mine must have been an extraordinary childhood.