PREFACE 
 
I have it on hearsay that I was born on the 12th of 
October in the year 1875 of Pseudo Christ. I was born 
dumb ; and the first incident of my career was the cutting 
of my fraenum linguae, that I might speak plainly.  The 
operation, as this volume shews, was a complete success.  
Of my early life I remember little ; chiefly a large garden 
with, at the end of it, a wood which overlooked the road 
and afforded vantage for archers.  There was war in the 
land ; my cousin Gregor Grant, six years older than myself, 
and a few other stern exiles, desperately banded against the 
rest of the neighbourhood.  I remember leaping from the 
top of a sand pit in the character of Sir Garnet Wolseley 
and nearly transfixing with my father’s alpenstock an asto-
nished navvy who had not properly prepared the trying 
rôle of Arabi Pasha, suddenly and without warning assi-
gned to him by our Army Council.  I remember too being 
disarmed and chased by a small Italian boy (the Mc. Callum 
Mohr) whose bandbox, containing doubtless an exquisite