Little wonder that I was fascinated to read Rupert’s final manuscript.  And, when I had finished the last words, I announced aloud a weighty decision:  “We must have a Prologue, Rupert,”—­though, to be sure, my study was empty at the time—­“and it must give pictures of what your three heroes were like, when they were small, abominable boys.”

And thereafter I busied myself in seeking information of the early childhood of Rupert Ray, Archibald Pennybet, and Edgar Gray Doe.  Not without misgiving do I offer the result of these researches, for I fear all the time lest my self-conscious hand should profane Rupert’s artless narrative.

In the year that the Colonel died he took little Rupert to see the swallows fly away.  Colonel Ray was a stately, grey-bearded grandfather; and Rupert his flushed and blue-eyed grandson of six years old; and the two stood side by side and watched.  Behind them lay the French town, Boulogne; beside them went the waters of the French river, the Liane.  Suddenly Rupert, who had kept his blue eyes on a sky but little bluer, cried out excitedly:  “There they are!” For him at that moment the most interesting thing in the world was the flight of swallows overhead.  The Colonel, also, looked at the birds till they were out of sight, and then, after keeping silence awhile, uttered a remark which was rather sent in pursuit of the birds than addressed to his young companion.  “I shall not see the swallows again,” he said.

Colonel Rupert Ray was no ordinary person.  He was one of those of whom tales are told; and such people are never ordinary.  The most treasured of these tales is the story of the swallows; and it goes on to tell, as you would expect, how the Colonel died that year, before the swallows came flying north and home again.  He was buried, while little Rupert and Rupert’s mother looked on, in that untidy corner of the Boulogne Cemetery, where many another English half-pay officer had been laid before him.

Of course the burial of the Colonel was very sad for Rupert; but he soon forgot it all in the excitement of preparing for the journey back to London.  The Colonel, you see, had known that his old life would break up soon, and had summoned from their home in London the widow and child of his favourite son, “that Rupert, the best of the lot,” as he used to call him.  And now the Colonel was dead.  So his grandson, the last of the Rupert Rays, could look forward to all the jolly thrills of steaming across the Channel to Folkestone and bowling in a train to London.  Really life was an excellent thing.

The day of the venturesome voyage began with excited sleeplessness and glowing health, and ended with a headache and great tiredness.  There was the bustle of embarkation on to the boat; the rattle and bang of falling luggage; the jangle of French and English tongues; the unstraining of mighty ropes; the “hoot! hoot!” from the funnel, a side-splitting incident; the suff-suff-lap-suff of the ploughed-up sea;