It is not my present purpose to write a biography of my friend. That is a task which must be discharged later, and an account of his life will be given in the first volume of the collected edition of his works, which it is proposed to publish after the war. Nevertheless, before writing of the transformation wrought in him by the war, it may be well to give a brief outline of his career. Munro was born in 1870 in Burmah, where his father, the late Colonel C. A. Munro, was stationed. At his christening he was named Hector Hugh. He belonged to a family with traditions of the two services. His paternal grandfather had been in the army, and his mother was a daughter of Rear-Admiral Mercer. Mrs. Munro died when her children were very young, and Hector, his elder brother and his sister were brought up by their father’s sisters, two maiden ladies, who were devoted to the children, but had old-fashioned Scottish ideas of discipline. Their home was near Barnstaple, a lonely house in a garden shut in by high stone walls with meadows beyond. The three children had no companions, and were thrown on their own resources for amusement. One of their diversions was to produce a newspaper. All through his childhood Hector professed violent Tory opinions, and at a very early age he began to take an interest in politics and to read any books or papers dealing with them that came his way. He loved, above all, the woodlands and the wild things in them, especially the birds. His delicate health caused his aunts somewhat to temper their severity in his case, but I fancy they must have had some difficulty in curbing his high spirits; for he was a thoroughly human boy and up to every sort of prank. He was sent for a time to a private school at Exmouth, and when he left it did lessons at home with his sister’s governess. Later he was sent to Bedford College. When school-days were over and Colonel Munro had returned to England for good, Hector and his sister were taken abroad by their father. They lived in Normandy and then in Dresden, where the first German words that Hector learnt were the names of birds, sometimes picked up from strangers in the zoological gardens. Then came a strenuous series of visits to German and Austrian cities, which Colonel Munro arranged as much for the education as the pleasure of his son and daughter. Museums and picture-galleries were visited everywhere. Hector amused himself by counting up the number of St. Sebastians in each gallery and making bets with his sister as to which would have the most. Berlin won with eighteen. The impression made on Munro by this tour is to be seen in his books, and in the present volume there are two tales, _The Interlopers_ and _The Wolves of Cernogratz_, which seem to have been inspired by the memory of some romantic castle in the heart of Europe. A short play, _Karl Ludwig’s Window_, which will be published later, is based on an idea given by a visit to a castle near Prague.