Sometimes, late in the afternoon, he would have some lesson that he must take to his master who, as he lodged at the bottom of Orange Street, was a very safe and steady distance from the Coles.
Of course Aunt Amy objected.
"You allow Jeremy, all by himself, into the street at night, and he's only eight.

Really, you're too strange!" "Well, in the first place," said Mrs.Cole, mildly, "it isn't night--it's afternoon; in the second place, it is only just down the street, and Jeremy's most obedient always, as you know, Amy." "I'm sure that Mr.Somerset is wild," said Aunt Amy.
"My dear Amy, why' ?" "You've only got to look at his face.

It's 'flashy.' That's what I call it." "Oh, that isn't the sort of man who'll do Jeremy harm," said Mrs.Cole, with a mother's wisdom.
Certainly, he did Jeremy no harm at all; he taught him nothing, not even "mensa," and how to spell "receive" and "apple." The only thing he did was to encourage Jeremy's independence, and this was done, in the first place, by the walks to and fro.
He had only been going to Mr.Somerset's a day or two when the announcements of the Fair appeared on the walls of the town.

He could not help but see them; there was a large cue on the boarding half-way down Orange Street, just opposite the Doctor's; a poster with a coloured picture of "Wombwell's Circus," a fine affair, with spangled ladies jumping through hoops, elephants sitting on stools, tigers prowling, a clown cracking a whip, and, best of all, a gentleman, with an anxious face and a scanty but elegant costume, balanced above a gazing multitude on a tight-rope.

There was also a bill of the Fair setting forth that there would be a "Cattle Market, Races, Roundabout, Swings, Wrestling, Boxing, Fat Women, Dwarfs, and the Two-Headed Giant from the Caucasus." During a whole week, once a day, Jeremy read this bill from the top to the bottom; at the end of the week he could repeat it all by heart.
He asked Mr.Somerset whether he was going.
"Oh, I shall slip along one evening, I've no doubt," replied that gentleman.