Page:The Sins of the Cities of the Plain.djvu/33

This page has been validated.
28
THE SINS OF THE

myself, and have heard him say that almost as soon as I could walk I would toddle up to anybody and ask them if they had a dilly; that lifting girls' clothes, or putting my hands on boys or even grown-up people was a regular thing with me.

My parents were well-to-do people of the farmer class in Suffolk, and I have been told of a laughable incident when I was only about six years old.

There was a family party, and at tea-time my cousin Jenny, a fine girl of about seventeen, who was slightly disfigured by a very hirsute appearance about her upper lip, was seated opposite to me, and particularly attracted my attention, it being the first time I had ever seen her. I was so absorbed in contemplating her moustache that I