This was the future scout of the British Army, and the young gentleman, according to his wont, was just scrambling into a chair when Thackeray, fumbling in his pocket, produced a new shilling, and said in his caressing voice, "There, little one, you shall have this shilling if you are good and run away." Ste quietly looked up at his mother, and not until she told him that he might go up to the nursery did he shift his ground.

But he carried that shilling with him, and now it is one of his most treasured possessions.
While he was doing lessons at home Baden-Powell gave evidence of his bent.

He was fond of geography, and few things pleased him more than the order to draw a map.

His maps, by the way, were always drawn with his left hand, and were astonishingly neat and accurate.

Then in his spare hours, with scissors and paper, he would cut out striking resemblances of the most noted animals in the Zoo, and these--elephants and tigers, monkeys and bears--were "hung" by his admiring brothers with due honour on a large looking-glass in the schoolroom, there to amuse the juvenile friends of the family.