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ur coming to Sandbourn in Sussex was yet another act of courage on the part of my mother.

We began our life in Sandbourn, as lodgers in a little stuccoed house off the King’s Road, while my mother explored the place before launching her adventure. I do not know how much capital she had, perhaps a few hundred pounds, but when she risked it in her throw with fate, she took her chances gallantly. A house, No. 42, in Regal Terrace, was to be let, and my mother obtained the lease of it, and opened it as a lodging house. Such furniture as we possessed went to the garnishing of our own rooms at the top of the house. My mother had to furnish the place out of capital, nor was she niggardly in her purchases, and I imagine that most of her capital must have been swallowed up in the experiment. My mother’s courage in risking her all in this adventure made a most profound impression upon me when I was sufficiently wise to appreciate her courage. She dared to do, what for her, must have been the big thing, and for a woman who had spent all her life in being careful, the risks she took were all the more singular.

But let me describe this little Sussex seacoast town as it was in those days. Planted on the curve of a shallow bay, with uplands and wooded hills rising behind it, the place had a beauty that even utilitarianism had failed to destroy. In the east the Old Town crowded under the Black Rock cliffs. Coasting schooners used its small harbour, and a row of black tackle-houses like huge sentry-boxes lined the shingle. The Old Town was all periods to all men, Elizabeth and Queen Anne, a delicious jumble of pride and prejudice in brick and tile and timber, full of little alleys and winding steps, and passages across which ancient houses seemed to rub noses. It delighted in rich, individual smells, suggestions of tar and hemp and paint, of fried fish and soapsuds and slops. It swarmed with very dirty and vigorous children who were ready to set upon any stranger in a white collar, as I soon discovered. Two bluff, square stone church towers rose above the jumble of red roofs, and against the eastern sky Furze Hill heaved itself like a great green wave. In the spring of the year this hill was all yellow with gorse, and when you climbed it on some still day that was dimly sunlit you looked down upon old Sandbourn through a haze of smoke.

The old town ended abruptly just short of the Monument, a pseudo-classic column capped by a clock. This grey and austere emblem stood on guard, and confronting the Old Town with one solemn clock-face, seemed to say “Thus Far and No Further.” The Monument set a boundary between the rude toilers of the sea and the segregated gentility of Sandbourn’s west-end. It was like an exclamation mark confronting Black Rock and its irreverent democracy. Beyond it and westwards stretched the Sandbourn of George and of William, Regal Terrace, and Regents Parade, solid, white houses with green roofed balconies, Regal Terrace bow fronted and brightly buttoned with polished brass, Regents Parade even more solemn and stately, with its high steps and porticoes, and little gardens behind painted balustrades. Sandbourn of the Regency looked as solid and eternal as some white cliff controlling the sea. Its thousand windows were scintillant and belaced, and like the eyes of a superior people they could make a casual urchin like myself feel infinitely obscure and small.

The original cliff face rose steeply behind Regal Terrace and Regents Parade, and here the cornices and chimneys of other houses cut the sky. These upper terraces were slightly later as to period than those below and behind them and their gardens open country swelled in the green fields of Pink Farm. Pink Farm itself, a Victorian fantasia, with its high gables and spired barn, and pink-washed walls, will always stand for me like a pharos. Some eccentric amateur agriculturist had built it in the ’forties, and its flamboyant cheekiness had become somewhat tamed by trees.

From the Monument, Sandbourn’s High Street ran directly north up the old Sandbourn valley, to the station and St. Jude’s Church. This was Sandbourn’s shopping centre, and much of it still retained a Georgian flavour. Many of the shops had been added to the original houses, and behind and above them, bow fronts and cornices and balustrades gave to this broad street a pleasant dignity.

Now, for Stuccoville. That is the name I gave to the conglomeration of splurging ugliness that the speculating builders of the 1860’s had crowded into the upper reaches of the Sandbourn valley. Here was every sort of cheap nastiness, shoddy little terraces, grey faced and grim, rows of semi-detached villas with absurd high steps ascending to mock-oak front doors. Every miserable front garden had a stuccoed wall compressing it, or cast-iron railings set in cemented pillars. The hideous, cheap artificiality of Stuccoville seemed to symbolize the smudgy humbug of its generation. Shoddy brickwork had been concealed behind cement. Even the pretentious ornamentation of some of the villas, the wretched shallow cornices and mouldings, made these buildings more vulgarly genteel. Hedges of euonymus completed the convention, and in the background bulged the red gasholders of the local Gas Works. Finally, one’s eye might rest on the mock-gothic spire of St. James’s Church, a fitting symbol for the concrete falseness of Stuccoville.

Here too, amid this mass of cement-daubed walls, stood the railway station, all yellow brick and iron sheeting painted ochre, and blue slate. It was a particularly hideous station, but it served a utilitarian purpose, and so was less dastardly than the houses that surrounded it. At one corner of the station-approach a firm of brewers had rebuilt the Victoria Hotel in white brick, with terra-cotta adornments. It had an absurd Mansard roof of blue slates with cast iron excrescences bristling on its summit, a blatant and ridiculous temple sacred to gods Bung and Beer.

Beyond St. Jude’s church and the Gas Works, Sandbourn High Street divided into three roads, the main Rudlake and London road on the left, that to Beaulieu and Petling in the centre, and the Stonestile-Winchfield road on the right. Stuccoville ceased with strange abruptness, and beyond a few market-gardens and orchards open country raised a great, green placid forehead. Three lovely valleys ascended to the Forest Ridge, and the woods of Beaulieu and Maskell’s Manor. To a boy who had seen no country other than the flat agricultural plain behind Westend, this Sussex landscape seemed miraculous. To me, even as a child, it was full of mystery and romance, high, spacious and lovely, God’s country after man’s Stuccoville. All of it was farmland, mostly grass, with a few arable fields on the lower slopes. The hedges were of thorn, big and bushy, and smothered in May with white blossom. Here and there a high wood capped some ridge. The wild flowers in spring were wonderful to see, violets and primroses on the banks, anemones and bluebells in the woods, purple orchids in the meadows.

Crowning the skyline was Beaulieu Park, with its five miles of grey stone wall, and the splendour of its park and woods, a serene and stately place that seemed to hang like Olympus in a more majestic sky. Its great trees, oaks, beeches, chestnuts, pines, seemed to rise dome on dome and spire on spire into infinite distances. There were ancient cedars, and a sequoia that could be seen for miles, and an avenue of old ilexes like lace cut out of black marble. The park was wild with fern, and thickets of old thorn and yew. On its highest knoll near the south lodge a group of magnificent Scotch firs rose like the red masts of ships lying crowded and at anchor.

Beaulieu belonged to the Bullstrodes, and in Sandbourn the name of Bullstrode was the sign and symbol of that other world that lived aloof in a serene arrogance of its own. The first Sir Beverley Bullstrode had been born in the last year of Elizabeth. There are baronets and baronets, and the Bullstrodes were not ormolu, but old gold. They represented to bourgeois Sandbourn all that was “County” and Olympian. Beaulieu and Stuccoville were two extremes.

My mother moved into No. 42 Regal Terrace in the month of March. It seemed to me a vast and imposing house. My mother was in a position to let three sets of rooms. We began with one maid; a stout, strong, genial creature called Mary. No. 42 had no basement. The kitchen quarters were built out at the back, and our sitting-room was a queer, stuffy little place on the ground floor, with a stained glass window that did not open, simply because it gave on to a passage that was lit by a skylight. We and Mary slept in the attics.

We sat down and waited. A neat card hung in a ground floor window. “Apartments.” I believe that my mother had registered her house with Miss Nelson who kept a library and stationery shop, and ran an agency in the High Street. Young as I was I was conscious of a feeling of anxiety and suspense. It happened to be a particularly poisonous March, windy and wet and drear. My mother sat perpetually at one of the ground floor windows, and watched that tumbling sea, and the deserted parade. She was like a little black spider waiting for flies.

She must have suffered agonies of suspense during those first empty weeks.

No one rang our bell.

I used to go wandering over the house, and thinking what a wonderful and splendid place it was, and that if only one could persuade people to enter and view it they would immediately come to live with us.

I felt like going out and catching respectable strangers by the sleeve, and imploring them to visit my mother’s house.

Rain, and wind, and a dirty sea that came splashing over the promenade. Rain beating on the windows. My mother sitting there, patient and still, and no doubt, a little frightened.

April. It had been raining, but in the afternoon the sky cleared, and I went down to play on the beach. Scattered sunlight was falling on the sea from a pale blue cleft in the clouds. I found a corked bottle on the beach, tossed it into the sea, and threw stones at it until a lucky shot broke the neck of the bottle, and it sank. It occurred to me that it must be nearly tea time and I bolted home. Men had been repairing the road between the parade and Regal Terrace, and it was a muddy squelch; it did not occur to me that my boots would carry mud into the house. I was moved by a sudden childish desire to re-explore all the front rooms now that the sun was shining into them, and I went trotting up the stairs.

My mother must have been sitting at her window, and had seen me rush in, for I had reached the first floor sitting-room when I heard her calling me.

“John, dear.”

“Yes, Mum.”

She came up the stairs and into the room, and her face wore a look of wounded severity.

“O, John, your boots!”

Only then did I realize that I had left muddy marks on the new Kidderminster carpets, and that my mother was pained.

“Look, dear. Do try to think. Supposing people were to call—”

Hardly had she spoken when the front door bell rang. I can see her now standing there with her head slightly on one side like a listening bird, and her face bright and excited.

“Tell Mary to get a cloth, dear. Quick.”

She went rustling down the stairs, while I sat on the floor and removed my inconsiderate boots, and then dashed down for Mary. In my hurry I forgot my boots and left them lying on the floor. My mother was opening the front door. I had a glimpse of a lady and a gentleman standing there. The lady was dressed in black silk and had a white shawl over her shoulders. The gentleman wore blond whiskers and a top hat.

I heard the lady say to my mother: “You let rooms, I believe?”

“Yes, madam,” said my mother; “may I ask you to step in.”

They entered, and my mother led them into the ground floor sitting-room. She did not close the door, and having warned Mary I crept back along the passage and listened. The lady was in charge of the conversation. She had a high-pitched, mincing voice, and she spoke to my mother as though my mother belonged to some inferior world, which, I suppose, in those days, she did.

“Mr. Sweeting and I have been staying at the Royal Hotel. It contains some very vulgar people whom we do not wish to associate with. I am not very strong, Mrs.—”

“Lancaster,” said my mother.

“Such associations do not suit me. My doctor insists on much rest and no fatigue. Vulgar people fatigue one. Have you any apartments vacant?”

“Yes, madam,” said my mother, “the first floor.”

“And what are your terms?”

“Ten guineas, madam, in the season. Six from October to April.”

“Tut-tut, that is very dear.”

Even now I can pay homage to my mother for her courage in sticking to her figures.

“Regal Terrace is fashionable, madam, and my terms are inclusive, and my house has been newly furnished.”

“Do you take children?”

“No, madam.”

“In my delicate state I cannot suffer children.”

“I have a small boy myself, madam, but he is a quiet child.”

“How old?”

“Ten, madam.”

I heard the gentleman say in a weak but pleasant voice:

“Supposing we look at the rooms, Angela. I believe there is a balcony, the very place for you, my dear.”

Her voice snubbed him.

“One moment, Edwin. You always forget how stairs try me. What are your stairs like, Mrs. Lancaster?”

“Not too difficult, madam. May I ask you to try them?”

I bolted back towards the kitchen, and then crept out again to watch the gentleman arming the lady up the stairs. She ascended them with fastidious deliberation, pausing once or twice to rest, and I remember thinking how sad it was that so comparatively young a lady should be so delicate.

“It is my heart, Mrs. Lancaster. I am not allowed to hurry.”

“There is no need to hurry, madam.”

Just as they reached the landing I remembered my wretched boots. Had Mary rescued them and removed them to some unseen place? But what if my dirty boots were still lying there? I felt that so much depended upon this occasion, and that a pair of muddy boots lying in the middle of the floor might disgust this delicate lady. I crept up the stairs to listen, but all seemed well. My mother was opening the French windows that gave on to the balcony.

“You see, madam, you could have your chair here.”

I heard Mr. Sweeting say: “Fresh air without fatigue, Angela.”

I had to disappear abruptly up the second flight of stairs, for my mother was suggesting that they should view the bedroom. I found Mary up above, holding my dirty boots, and listening with dumb concentration to the conversation below. She smiled, held up my boots, shook her head at me and whispered:

“It’s a good thing I got there first, Master John.”

All was well. Mrs. Sweeting approved of the rooms and my mother, and that, I was to gather, was all that mattered in the Sweeting ménage. They moved in next day, and their coming was the beginning of an association that was to endure during most of my mother’s life. The Sweetings were to be like gilt-edged securities to us for six months or more in every year. Mr. Edwin Sweeting was an amiable and rather dudish ass with a considerable private income, and with no urges to express himself save in little flirtations and the painting of sentimental pictures. Mrs. Sweeting allowed him his pictures, though she was careful to insist upon people knowing that Mr. Sweeting painted as an amateur and a gentleman, and not for money. As to his flirtations, she retained so remorseless a grip on him, and was so completely the exacting invalid that the poor man spent much of his life in humouring and appeasing her moods and tantrums.

I gather that my mother’s handling of sweet Angela must have been a superb piece of dramatization. She sold her sympathy as well as her service, and suffered in the cause of commerce the exactions of this fierce egoist. I know that I disliked the lady, and kept out of her way, and my discretion was mutually acceptable. Her thin, peaky prettiness suggested to me the smell of vinegar, and the smell of vinegar was a thing my stomach loathed. As for poor Mr. Edwin, he and I became very good friends. He would take me out with him on some of his rambles, and I gather I served as a certificate of virtue.

“Where have you been, Edwin?”

“Takin’ a stroll, dear, with Johnnie Lancaster.”

He gave me half-crowns.

He was not allowed to smoke in the house. He had to take his pipe to the far end of the balcony, and even when he smoked, convention insisted upon his wearing an absurd black velvet cap with a gold tassel.

In May of the same year Miss Porter came to us to occupy the second floor, a stout, placid old person in a white lace cap. Miss Porter was to become a permanent resident in No. 42. She just sat down and stayed put. I can remember nothing very dramatic about her save that on one windy day I happened on Miss Porter just as she had reached our steps. A gust of wind caught the house, and was reflected back upon the lady, and catching her bonnet, lifted it and left it pendant at the back of her head. All Miss Porter’s hair appeared to be attached to her bonnet, and her cranium was as bald and as white as an egg.

Miss Porter was not in the least disconcerted. She smiled at me.

“How very rude of the wind, my dear.”

I remember asking my mother whether Mrs. Sweeting’s hair came off in the same way. My mother took the question very seriously.

“Little boys mustn’t be inquisitive. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t. Mr. Sweeting might be happier if it did.”

But why? When I tried to explore this mysterious subject my mother suppressed me. I suppose that I was still too young to be initiated into such mysteries.

Before June was out my mother had let her other two sets of rooms, and from that day her financial worries must have ceased. She had dared success and she deserved it; that it came to her in her small way was not a gift from the gods. And during those summer months I found myself involved in my mother’s adventure. She did all the cooking; and even helped our good Mary with the rooms, and in this crisis I constituted myself a kind of amateur page. I cleaned boots, carried up hot water, answered the door.

Some kind people could wag their heads in later days and say of me: “Yes, he used to clean the boots in his mother’s lodging-house.”

Shameful occupation! But I liked polishing boots, especially Mr. Edwin’s boots. I felt that I was making a return for the half-crowns he gave me.

My part as self-constituted household drudge did not last beyond the summer. My mother engaged a cook, one, Martha. My mother was most careful and deliberate in her choice or a cook. She knew that if the success of No. 42 was to be what she intended it to be, permanent and singular, the pleasing of people’s palates was essential. Mrs. Sweeting possessed not only a febrile temper but a most exacting stomach. If Martha could satisfy dear Angela the test might be regarded as crucial.

Martha did not fail us. She was a somewhat unusual woman, dark, farouche, and reticent, and she allowed it to be known that she had spent part of her life in France as cook to a French family. She could be both English and French in her cooking, and the la française in Martha was just the spice that was needed to placate Mrs. Sweeting’s temperamental exactions. A French cook! That was quite distinguished. Martha used to send up special little dishes to dear Angela complete with their French names.

I realize now that both Mary and Martha conceived genuine affection for my mother and that the service that they gave was personal. My mother was a lovable creature, and her integrity and kindness were absolute. She fed these women well, sent them out of doors whenever it was possible, and arranged that each of them should have a yearly holiday. She trusted them, and proved, what I was to prove in my own world, that if you trust the common people as individuals, not in the mass, good faith will be returned to you.

I come now to one of those periods in my life, the memory of which is a little shameful to me.

In September of that year my mother entered me as a day-boy at St. John’s College.

St. John’s College was a private affair, owned and presided over by a gentleman named Barter, Mr. Theophilus Barter. The school housed itself in two large, semi-detached, stucco villas in Hart Lane off the High Street. The villas had been connected up to form one building, and the back gardens formed the playground. There were about sixty boys at St. John’s College, and their ages ranged from ten to eighteen. We were a very mixed lot, for though Mr. Theophilus Barter had christened his school a college, commerce compelled him to be tolerant in the matter of social status. Our school roll included farmers’ sons, boys whose fathers were leading tradesmen in Sandbourn, and sons of auctioneers, builders, and minor business men. I suppose that, socially, I was bottom boy in this collection of middle-class savages.

For savages they were, many of them. I was a sensitive, shy child, and I was destined to suffer.

To me on that first September morning in the St. John’s playground came two ominous boys who were three or four years older than I was. One, Bob Snoad, was sallow and fat and bulging in a curious black velveteen suit; the other, Percy Pym, was a thin lad with an impudent pallor and flickering cruel eyes of a sinister pale blue. Snoad’s father was a builder, Pym the son of an auctioneer and estate agent, and even in those school days they hunted together in partnership.

They cornered me in the yellow brick walled playground. It was a dusty, dreary space with a lavatory building in one corner, a sycamore tree in the other. In the centre of the playground stood a pair of parallel bars and a horizontal bar that were in official use only when an ex-sergeant major came to drill us and give us gymnastic lessons.

“Hallo, you kid, what’s your name?”

I was eager to propitiate these truculent fellows.

“Lancaster, sir.”

Snoad gave me a push, and I collided with Pym. Master Pym jerked me back against Snoad, who smacked me across the mouth with the back of a hard red hand. His knuckles hurt, but I swallowed and tried to be brave.

“Here! What d’you think you’re doing?”

“He pushed me.”

I heard Pym’s drawling voice behind me.

“Do you refer to me as he, you little squirt?”

Pym got me by the ear. I was to discover that he posed as a cynic and a humorist.

“Mother keeps a lodging-house, what?”

“Yes.”

“Say, sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

“His mother takes in lodgers, Mr. Snoad. Nasty business, that. What do you do at home, kid?”

I was thinking of something to say, and in my innocence I blurted out the truth.

“I clean the boots.”

This seemed mightily to amuse the pair. Pym gave my ear a twist, and pushed me at Snoad, who smacked my face again with the back of his hand.

“Boots! We’ll christen him Boots, Mr. Pym.”

We were in the corner by the sycamore tree, and Pym gave my ear another twist.

“Take your boots off. Stuffy little kids from lodging-houses don’t wash their feet. I think we’ll inspect them, Mr. Snoad.”

“Off with your boots.”

I was on the edge of tears, and I assured them that my feet were clean.

“The little beast argues, Mr. Snoad. Kick him for me, please, will you?”

I was kicked, and with sudden tears I sat down under the tree, took off my boots and unpeeled my stockings. They had been darned, and this carefulness caused my two persecutors to exult. They could not criticize the cleanliness of my feet, but my darned stockings were subjects for ridicule.

“Potatoes, Mr. Snoad!”

Other boys had gathered, and I was ordered by Pym to get up and parade across the playground, holding a stocking in either hand. I must have been a miserable little object, blubbering and paddling around on my bare feet, holding up those darned stockings. The school mocked me. No masters appeared to curtail my humiliation. And then the bell rang, and I was left to get back into my boots and stockings as quickly as I could, and to mop up my face with a crumpled handkerchief. I sneaked into the classroom half a minute later, but the master who took the two lower forms was a very short-sighted young man, and he did not appear to notice me.

In fact, Mr. Theophilus Barter, M.A., and his two assistant masters cultivated a shrewd myopia with regard to many of the things that happened in the playground. St. John’s College was a day-school, and I can imagine Barter thanking his Snob God for it, and washing his hands of all the problems that are associated with sadism and sex. He was a smeary little man with a surreptitious smile, very polite to parents, and, I suppose, bitterly bored by having to educate boys, who, most of them, resented being educated. Mr. Barter’s favourite phrase was “Boys will be boys,” and he washed his hands in invisible soap, and did not see what he did not desire to see, and like his generation, hid himself like the spittle insect, in a froth of humbug.

The two assistant masters were bored young men who appeared to have accepted Barter’s sentimental cynicism. Keeling of the high-powered spectacles was held in contempt by most of the school. Sandys, a florid young man whom I used to see haunting the parade in the evening, very much dressed up and in search of adventure, had a hot temper which made him more feared than the other. He was supposed to be responsible for our games, but he was a poor performer with bat and ball, and the work of the playing field was as perfunctory as that of the classrooms.

During those first weeks I suffered torture from the cruelties of Messrs. Snoad and Pym. I suppose I was the predestined victim, a small and sensitive creature who could be persecuted with éclat and impunity. Some of us went home for the mid-day meal, and I used to bolt out of the gate and run for my life, but the ten minutes interval in the middle of the morning when we all poured out into the playground was my time of torture.

How was I to escape from Pym and Snoad during those ten minutes? We were not supposed to leave the playground. And then I had an inspiration. In the junior classroom I sat on the bottom bench, and nearest the door, and when the class broke up for the interval I bolted like a young rabbit. The lavatory in the playground was divided into three compartments, each with a cheap wooden door, and I fled for this refuge.

I hid myself in the lavatory, bolted myself in and as though to make the business appear more rational, unbuttoned my braces, lowered my knickers, and sat on the seat.

For two mornings the ruse succeeded. I suppose Messrs. Snoad and Pym came to the conclusion that I had flouted the regulations and escaped into Hart Lane, but they must have posted a minion to watch the gate, and so come to realize that I was hiding somewhere about the school.

On the third morning I heard their voices. The lavatory compartments were divided by seven foot partitions, and the next thing I remember was seeing a pair of hands hooking themselves over the top of the wooden screen. Pym’s face appeared. I can see him now looking down at me with his pale and mocking eyes.

A boy strolled through the crowd, elbowing through with his hands in his pockets. It was Lugard, a farmer’s son, a senior boy who to me was a creature of grandeur and aloofness. Lugard was one of those youngsters with a beautiful, ruddy skin, very black hair, dark eyes, extraordinarily strong, and in spite of his high colour and his glowing strength, of a serene, sweet temper. He was somehow different from these others. He had a dignity, compassion. I can remember the way he looked at me, and the way he looked at Snoad.

“What’s this?”

“Boots has been hiding in the lav.”

Lugard’s hands were still in his pockets. I remember him telling me afterwards that he had been watching the activities of Messrs. Pym & Snoad. But the suddenness with which he smote those two was to me one of the most dramatic and suggestive incidents in my life. He said nothing at all. His two fists just went smack-smack into the faces of Pym and Snoad. He distributed one or two casual cuffs to other heads, and then took my pants and breeches and with deft and deliberate kindness, buttoned them up for me.

“I’m not going to have any more of this, Snoad.”

The lout was holding a handkerchief to his nose. He looked cowed and evil.

“I’ll lick you for this, Lugard.”

“Lick me, you black slug!”

Lugard just moved a step in Snoad’s direction, and my chief enemy backed quickly through the crowd.

“I’ll not have this kid bullied any more. You understand.”

That was the end of the business, though I believe Pym went and sneaked to Barter. If he did, he obtained no satisfaction from the “Head,” who, we suspected, was a little afraid of Lugard.

The only piece of pride left me was that I had not gone puling to my mother. Was it that I did not want to worry her, or that I was ashamed of the poor little figure I was cutting at school? I can remember her looking at me anxiously, but she did not question me as to my happiness at St. John’s. I know that she was proud of having been able to send me there, and I did not want to spoil her pleasure, and I held my tongue.

But I had my hero. How could I show my gratitude to the great man who had rescued me? for to me, Lugard was a man. He was bigger and stronger than either of the junior masters. I had begun to collect stamps at the time; the whole school was trading stamps, and Mr. Sweeting had made me a present of a set of Cape Colony triangular stamps. They were of some value, and unique so far as the school was concerned.

I put those stamps in my pocket, and when the interval came I waited for Lugard to appear. He had a football under his arm, and when I accosted him shyly, he punted the ball across the playground, and smiled at me.

“What’s the trouble, Lancaster?”

“There’s no trouble, sir. I wondered if you would like these?”

I brought out the precious stamps and offered them to him.

“I’d be awfully pleased if you’d take them, sir.”

He held the stamps in his big hand, smiled at them, and then smiled at me.

“No, I’m not going to take your stamps, Lancaster.”

“Oh, please do, sir.”

“Well, I’ll take six of them, and leave you the rest. They’re pretty precious, aren’t they?”

I was aware of Pym and Snoad watching us, and I knew they could accuse me of sucking up to Lugard. He too was aware of the two bullies, for he turned and spoke to them.

“Snoad.”

“What do you want?”

“Come here. And call me sir. Go and get that ball for me, and be quick about it.”

Snoad went, and Lugard smiled down at me.

“Learn to bite, young Lancaster.”

“Bite, sir?”

“Yes, if anyone snarls at you, bite. It’s better to bite than be bitten. Snoad’s too big for you, but Snoad’s my pigeon. If any of the other kids try it on with you, bite. You’ll find they will let you alone.”

I took Lugard’s advice. His championing of me had made me a different creature, set me alight with a new kind of courage. I think I was burning to prove to my great man that I was no mere little funk and cry-baby, and that his faith in me could be justified. I was both afraid and quivering to tackle my enemy, and whenever I have fought it has been with a fury of sensitive terror and recklessness. As I grew older I taught myself to take my battles more coolly, with a kind of confident ruthlessness, and a nonchalance that puzzled the other fellow.

A kid in the form above me jostled me as we poured out into the playground.

“Hallo, young Boots.”

He was a little, flat-faced urchin with freckles and a snub nose, impudent and cocky. I imagine that he had been prompted by Snoad, Pym & Co. to hector me, for Lugard could not intervene between me and a boy of my own size. The child’s name was Jukes, and I flew at young Jukes in a frenzy, and got my fist on his nose and drew blood before he had realized that he had caught a Tartar. It must have been a funny fight, a little whirlwind affair, all over in half a minute. There was a crowd round us, and I was aware of Lugard up above on the school steps. My fury was such that it seemed to paralyze and bewilder the other boy. We both hit wildly, but my wildness was luckier than his, and my ferocity more inspired. I was fighting under the eye of my hero.

I had young Jukes down twice, and after the second tumble, he got up with his face looking all funny. He was in tears. Instantly, something in me was moved to compassion. I found myself with my arm round the other child, and offering him my handkerchief.

Lugard came down to us through the crowd of boys.

“Well done, you two kids. Shake hands and make it up.”

He took the two of us down to the school cloakroom, and like a father, attended to Jukes’s face.

“Buzz along, Jukes.”

But he held me back by the arm.

“Good kid, Lancaster. You came very well out of that. I like you.”

It was one of the great occasions in my life.

I took Jukes home with me after school, and gave him two of my precious South African stamps.