PART ONE




CHAPTER ONE


The Earl of Kingsmead lay flat on his stomach on the warm, short grass
by the carp-pond, and studied therein the ponderous manoeuvres of an
ancient fish, believed by the people thereabouts to be something over
two hundred years old. Carp had a great charm for Lord Kingsmead; so had
electricity; so had toads; so had buns, and stable-boys, and pianolas,
and armour, and curates, and chocolates.

Everything was full of interest to this interesting nobleman, and the
most beautiful part of it was that there was beyond Kingsmead and the
very restricted area of London that he had hitherto been allowed to
investigate, a whole world full of things strange, undreamed-of,
delightful, and, best of all, dangerous, to the study of which he meant
to dedicate every second of the time that spread between that moment as
he lay on the grass and the horrid hour when he should be carried to the
family vault surrounded by sobbing relations.

For Tommy Kingsmead was one of those most unusual persons who understand
the value of life as it dribbles through their fingers in seconds,
instead of, like most people, losing the vibrant present in a useless
(because invariably miscalculated) study of the future.