riod:

"I remember very well Belloc coming to the Oratory School--some time in
'83, I suppose. He was a small, squat person, of the shaggy kind, with a
clever face and sharp, bright eyes. Being amongst English boys, his
instinctive combativeness made him assume a decidedly French pose, and
this no doubt brought on him many a gibe, which, we may be equally sure,
he was well able to return. I was amongst the older boys, saw little of
him. But I recollect finding him cine day studying a high wall (of the
old Oratory Church, since pulled down). It turned out that he was
calculating its exact height by some cryptic mathematical process which
he proceeded to explain. I concealed my awe, and did not tell him that I
understood nothing of his terms, his explanations, or deductions; it
would have been unsuitable for a big fellow to be taught by a 'brat.' In
those days the boys used to act Latin plays of Terence, which enjoyed a
certain celebrity, and from his first year Belloc was remarkable. His
rendering of the impudent servant maid was the inauguration of a series
of triumphs during his whole school career."

In '89 Hilaire left school, and served for a year in the French field
artillery, in a regiment stationed at Toul. Here he revived the Gallic
heritage which was naturally his, learned to talk continually in French,
and to drink wine. You will remember that in "The Path to Rome" he
starts from Toul; but I cannot quote the passage; someone (who the devil
is it?) has borrowed my copy. It is the perpetual fate of that
book--everyone should have six copies.

After the rough and saline company of French gunners it is a comical
contrast to find him winning a scholarship at Balliol College,
Oxford--admittedly the most rarefied and azure-pedalled precinct in
England. He matriculated at Balliol in January, 1895, and was soon known
as one of the "characters" of the college. There was little of the lean
and pallid clerk of Oxenford in his bearing: he was the Roman candle of
the Junior Common Room, where the vivacious and robust humour of the
barracks at Toul at first horrified and then captivated the men from the
public schools. Alternately blasphemous and idolatrous he may have
seemed to Winchester and Eton: a devil for work and a genius at play. He
swam, wrestled, shouted, rode, drank, and debated, says Mr. Seccombe. He
read strange books, swore strange oaths, and amazed his tutors by the
fire and fury of his historical study. His