bscure a person as myself; but in two minutes he was able to produce
a deep impression upon me, as he did upon most people who met him. John
Crondall had a great deal of personal charm, but the thing about him
which bit right into my consciousness that afternoon was his earnest
sincerity. As Crewe, the man who introduced me to him, said afterwards:

"There isn't one particle of flummery in Crondall's whole body."

It was an obviously truthful criticism. You might agree with the man or
not, but no intelligent human being could doubt his honesty, the reality
of his convictions, the strength and sincerity of his devotion to the
cause of those convictions. It was perfectly well known then that
Crondall had played a capable third or fourth fiddle in the maintenance,
so far, of the Imperial interest in South Africa. His masterful leader,
the man who, according to report, had inspired all his fiery earnestness
in the Imperialist cause, was dead. But John Crondall had relinquished
nothing of his activity as a lieutenant, and continued to spend a good
share of his time in South Africa, while, wherever he was, continuing to
devote his energies to the same cause.

As for his material interests, Crewe assured me that Crondall knew no
more of business, South African or otherwise, than a schoolboy. He had
inherited property worth about a couple of thousand a year, and had
rather decreased than added to it. For, though he had acted as war
correspondent in the Russo-Japan war, and through one or two "little
wars," in outlying parts of the British Empire, circumstances had
prevented such work being of profit to him. In the South African war he
had served as an irregular, and achieved distinction in scouting and
guiding work.

John Crondall's life, I gathered, had been the very opposite of my own
sheltered progress from Dorset village to school, from school to
University, and thence to my present street-bound routine in London. His
views were clearly no less opposite to that vague tumult of resentment,
protest, and aspiration which represented my own outlook upon life.
Indeed, his speech that day was an epitome of the sentiment and opinions
which I had chosen to regard with the utmost abhorrence.

With Crondall, every other consideration hinged upon and was subservient
to the Imperialist idea of devotion to the bond which united all
British possessions under one rule. The maintenance and furtherance of
that tie, the absorption of all