cannot be allowed to slip into this tale by a side-door. If you will
consult the Peerage you will find that to Edward Cospatrick,
fifteenth Baron Clanroyden, there was born in the year 1882, as his
second son, Ludovick Gustavus Arbuthnot, commonly called the
Honourable, etc. The said son was educated at Eton and New
College, Oxford, was a captain in the Tweeddale Yeomanry, and
served for some years as honorary attache at various embassies. The
Peerage will stop short at this point, but that is by no means the
end of the story. For the rest you must consult very different
authorities. Lean brown men from the ends of the earth may be
seen on the London pavements now and then in creased clothes,
walking with the light outland step, slinking into clubs as if they
could not remember whether or not they belonged to them. From
them you may get news of Sandy. Better still, you will hear of him
at little forgotten fishing ports where the Albanian mountains dip
to the Adriatic. If you struck a Mecca pilgrimage the odds are you
would meet a dozen of Sandy's friends in it. In shepherds' huts in
the Caucasus you will find bits of his cast-off clothing, for he has a
knack of shedding garments as he goes. In the caravanserais of
Bokhara and Samarkand he is known, and there are shikaris in the
Pamirs who still speak of him round their fires. If you were going
to visit Petrograd or Rome or Cairo it would be no use asking him
for introductions; if he gave them, they would lead you into strange
haunts. But if Fate compelled you to go to Llasa or Yarkand or
Seistan he could map out your road for you and pass the word to
potent friends. We call ourselves insular, but the truth is that we
are the only race on earth that can produce men capable of getting
inside the skin of remote peoples. Perhaps the Scots are better than
the English, but we're all a thousand per cent better than anybody
else. Sandy was the wandering Scot carried to the pitch of genius.