TOLD IN A FRENCH GARDEN

INTRODUCTION

HOW WE CAME INTO THE GARDEN


It was by a strange irony of Fate that we found ourselves reunited for
a summer's outing, in a French garden, in July, 1914.

With the exception of the Youngster, we had hardly met since the days
of our youth.

We were a party of unattached people, six men, two women, your humble
servant, and the Youngster, who was an outsider.

With the exception of the latter, we had all gone to school or college
or dancing class together, and kept up a sort of superficial
acquaintance ever since--that sort of relation in which people know
something of one another's opinions and absolutely nothing of one
another's real lives.

There was the Doctor, who had studied long in Germany, and become an
authority on mental diseases, developed a distaste for therapeutics,
and a passion for research and the laboratory. There was the Lawyer,
who knew international law as he knew his Greek alphabet, and hated a
court room. There was the Violinist, who was known the world over in
musical sets,--everywhere, except in the concert room. There was the