Part One     

  

  

       Chapter 1 — AN ENGLISH BOY'S HOME     

 August the First, 19— 

       Clarence Chugwater looked around him with a frown, and gritted his teeth.     

       "England—my England!" he moaned.     

       Clarence was a sturdy lad of some fourteen summers. He was neatly, but not gaudily, dressed in a flat-brimmed hat, a coloured handkerchief, a flannel shirt, a bunch of ribbons, a haversack, football shorts, brown boots, a whistle, and a hockey-stick. He was, in fact, one of General Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts.     

       Scan him closely. Do not dismiss him with a passing glance; for you are       looking at the Boy of Destiny, at Clarence MacAndrew Chugwater, who saved England.     

       To-day those features are familiar to all. Everyone has seen the Chugwater Column in Aldwych, the equestrian statue in Chugwater Road (formerly Piccadilly), and the picture-postcards in the stationers' windows. That bulging forehead, distended with useful information; that massive chin; those eyes, gleaming behind their spectacles; that tout ensemble; that je ne sais quoi.     

       In a word, Clarence!     

       He could do everything that the Boy Scout must learn to do. He could low like a bull. He could gurgle like a wood-pigeon. He could imitate the cry of the turnip in order to deceive rabbits. He could smile and whistle simultaneously in accordance with Rule 8 (and only those who have tried this know how difficult it is). He could spoor, fell trees, tell the character from the boot-sole, and fling the squaler. He did all these things well, but what he was really best at was flinging the squaler.     

       Clarence, on this sultry August afternoon, was tensely occupied tracking the family cat across the 

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