Lewis Carroll well how to use his fists in defense of a righteous cause", which is the protection of the smaller boys. Scholastically, though, he excelled with apparent ease. "I have not had a more promising boy at his age since I came to Rugby", observed mathematics master R. B. Mayor. Francis Walkingame's "The Tutor's Assistant; Being a Compendium of Arithmetic" – the mathematics textbook that the young Dodgson used – still survives and it contained an inscription in Latin, which translates to: "This book belongs to Charles Lutwidge Dodgson: hands off!" Some pages also included annotations such as the one found
Charles Dodgson (priest) College, Oxford, and who was a friend of Dodgson, used to walk over to visit Daresbury on Sundays, sometimes helping with the church services. Bayne would bring his son Vere, who became a lifelong friend of the young Charles Lutwidge. Other friends and visitors included Richard Durnford, Rector of Middleton, Lancashire; Francis Egerton, Member of Parliament for South Lancashire and John Wilson Patten, MP for North Lancashire. Dodgson was concerned about the canal workers on the Bridgewater Canal running past his parish. Together with Egerton, who was a wealthy local landowner, he converted a barge into a floating chapel, moored