At tea in the nursery the young lady suddenly remarked:—­

“I like you, Boy.  You’re worth nine Haddocks.”

This cryptic valuation puzzled Damocles the more in that he had never seen or heard of a haddock.  Had he been acquainted with the fowl he might have been yet more astonished.

Later he discovered that the comparison involved the fat boy who sat solemnly stuffing on the other side of the table, his true baptismal name being Haddon.

Yes, Lucille was a revelation, a marvel.

Far quicker of mind than he, cleverer at games and inventing “make believe,” very strong, active, and sporting, she was the most charming, interesting, and attractive experience in his short but eventful life.

How he loved to make her laugh and clap her hands!  How he enjoyed her quaint remarks, speculations, fairy-tales and jokes.  How he yearned to win her approval and admiration.  How he strove to please her!

In Lucille and his wonderful new surroundings he soon forgot Major Decies, who returned to live (and, at a ripe old age, to die) at Bimariabad, where had lived and died the woman whom he had so truly and purely loved.  The place where he had known her was the only place for him.

On each of his birthdays Damocles received a long fatherly letter and a handsome present from the Major, and by the time he went away to school at Wellingborough, he wondered who on earth the Major might be.

To his great delight Damocles found that he was not doomed to discontinue his riding, fencing, boxing, and “dismounted drill without arms”.

General Seymour Stukeley sent for a certain Sergeant Havlan (once a trooper in his own regiment), rough-rider, swordsman, and boxer, now a professional trainer, and bade him see that the boy learned all he could teach him of arms and horsemanship, boxing, swimming, and general physical prowess and skill.  Lucille and Haddon Berners were to join in to the extent to which their age and sex permitted.

The General intended his great-nephew to be worthy of his Stukeley blood, and to enter Sandhurst a finished man-at-arms and horseman, and to join his regiment, Cavalry, of course, with nothing much to learn of sword, lance, rifle, revolver, and horse.

Sergeant Havlan soon found that he had little need to begin at the beginning with Damocles de Warrenne in the matter of riding, fencing or boxing, and was unreasonably annoyed thereat.

In time, it became the high ambition and deep desire of Dam to overcome Sergeant Havlan’s son in battle with the gloves.  As young Havlan was a year his senior, a trained infant prodigy, and destined for the Prize Ring, there was plenty for him to learn and to do.

With foil or sabre the boy was beneath Dam’s contempt.

Daily the children were in Sergeant Havlan’s charge for riding and physical drill, Dam getting an extra hour in the evening for the more manly and specialized pursuits suitable to his riper years.