The gift of an animal was found a valuable aid to negotiations with the young despot; when medicine was to be taken, he would name "a speckled frog" as the price of his compliance, and presently his mother would be seen hovering hither and thither among the strawberry-beds.

A quaint menagerie was gradually assembled: owls and monkeys, magpies and hedgehogs, an eagle and snakes.

Boy-collectors are often cruel; but Robert showed from the first an anxious tenderness and an eager care for life: we hear of a hurt cat brought home to be nursed, of ladybirds picked up in the depths of winter and preserved with wondering delight at their survival.

Even in stories the death of animals moved him to bitter tears.

He was equally quick at books, and soon outdistanced his companions at the elementary schools which he attended up to his fourteenth year.