stolid, ill-read person, but I confess that the spectacle of those historic flats was not one, in diplomatic phrase, which I could view with indifference. On Harry, ridiculously excited already, the effect was almost alarming. He became quite lyrical over two little sweepers apparently anchored near the mouth of the Straits. 'That,' he said, 'must have been where the Greek fleet lay. God! it's wonderful.' Up on the slope towards De Tott's Battery the guns were busy, and now and then Asiatic Annie sent over a large shell from the region of Achilles' tomb, which burst ponderously in the sea off Cape Helles. And there we sat on the rough edge of the cliff and talked of Achilles and Hector and Diomed and Patroclus and the far-sounding bolts of Jove. I do not defend or exalt this action; but this is a truthful record of a man's personality, and I simply state what occurred. And I confess that with the best wish in the world I was myself becoming a little bored with Troy, when in the middle of a sentence he suddenly became silent and gazed across the Straits with a fixed, pinched look in his face, like a man who is reminded of some far-off calamity he had forgotten. For perhaps a minute he maintained this rigid aspect, and then as suddenly relaxed, murmuring in a tone of relentless determination, 'I will.' It was not in me not to inquire into the nature of this passionate intention, and somehow I induced him to explain.

It seemed that in spite of his genuine academic successes and a moderate popularity at school and at Oxford, he had suffered from early boyhood from a curious distrust of his own capacity in the face of anything he had to do. In a measure, no doubt, this had even contributed to his successes. For his nervousness took the form of an intimate, silent brooding over any ordeal that lay before him, whether it was a visit to his uncle, or 'Schools,' or a dance: he would lie awake for hours imagining all conceivable forms of error and failure and humiliation that might befall him in his endeavour. And though he was to this extent forewarned and forearmed, it must have been a painful process. And it explained to me the puzzling intervals of seeming melancholy which I had seen varying his usually cheerful demeanour.

'You remember last night,' he said, 'I had been detailed to look after the baggage when we disembarked, and take charge of the unloading-party? As far as I know I did the job all right, except for losing old Tompkins' valise—but you can't think how much worry and anxiety it gave me beforehand. All the time on the sweeper I was imagining the hundreds of possible disasters: the working-party not turning up, and me left alone on the boat with the 

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