He was a nephew of Mervyn Bruce, the famous traveller, and we had turned up the same day at Haileybury--two forlorn new boys. I can see him now with his shock of red hair, his friendly grin, and that funny little habit of scratching the back of his right ear which has never left him. He came up and spoke to me in the quad. Some big fellow had just asked me my name, and when in all innocence I had said, "Bridges--what's yours?" I had been answered with a clip over the head that had sent me sprawling on the asphalt. "Why did he hit you?" asked Bruce. I explained, trying not to blubber. "You'll know him again, won't you?" said Bruce. I nodded. "That's all right," he said cheerfully. "Then you can poison his food." I remember this struck me as being a very comforting reflection, and from that moment Bruce and I have always been the best of friends. Later on we shared a study together, the corner study next "the big school," and one summer holiday I went and stayed with his people in that big, ivy-covered house near Goring that you can see from the railway line. When we left school our paths separated for a time. I started at journalism in London, while Bruce was sent to France "to learn the language." I think his father had some idea that he would make a good Prime Minister. When the old man died, Bruce came home and settled in London. He had come into about £800 a year, and had no intention at all of going into politics. Since then we have always seen a good deal of each other. He is just the same cheery, irresponsible, adventurous, good-natured chap that he was at school. I don't think we ever had anything approaching a quarrel in our lives. I have told you all this so that you can see exactly what sort of people we are. It's really quite unnecessary, because you won't believe my story in any case. Still, unless Bruce and I are insane, the thing really happened; and as there is absolutely no reason to suppose we are, I intend to tell it and get it off my chest. I will begin right at the beginning. It was on the 9th of February that I first learned of Mervyn Bruce's death. I saw it in the _Daily Mail_ while I was having breakfast. There was a portrait of him in rough shooting clothes and a cork helmet--it must have been taken many years before--and a full column about his life and adventures. He had died at Etretat, where the paper said he had been living for some time. I didn't bother myself about it, because I knew that he and Bruce had not been on speaking terms for years. There had been some silly family squabble somewhere back in the dark ages, and the old explorer was one of those fatuous people who think it a point of honour to keep a thing like that up for ever. So, after making an ineffectual attempt at a reconciliation when he was in France, Bruce had simply let matters slide.