I longed to call after him: “Father, really! Are you going queer in the head?” But it struck me that if a man is going queer in the head, he is the last person to mention it to. That sentence has brought me up with a bang. Do I really believe my father is going insane? No, of course not. I even have a faint, glorious hope that he may be working — he has twice asked for ink. But it is slightly peculiar that he took my coloured chalks — what was left of them — and an ancient volume of Little Folks; also that he went for a walk carrying an out-of-date Bradshaw railway guide.
