Some afternoon, Sir George journeyed down to Lombard Street, in order to
revisit his ancient shrine. He returned triumphant with the news, 'Would
you believe it? I have found many of those old books just where they
were, so very long ago. Dear me! the discovery almost took my breath
away, and a sort of lump was in my throat.' And the orange stall? Aye,
even it lingered; at least there was still a stall in Change Alley.
London had not rolled over it.

The romance of war descended to Sir George Grey on his mother's side, as
well as from his father. She was daughter to a military officer, whose
exploit at the siege of Gibraltar she recited to her boy. It was that of
a derring-do soldier.

He happened to be on leave, from his duties at the fortress, when the
famous siege began. He hurried to the neighbourhood, laid hold of a
boat, and actually rowed through the Spanish fleet. The British garrison
gave him a tremendous reception, and the officers marked his feat by the
gift of a gold snuff-box. He was thrice welcome: for himself, for the
coolness with which he had broken the blockade, and for the news he
brought from the outside.

The precious snuff-box descended to Sir George Grey, an heirloom that
suggested an adventure of his own. He was sent to a school at Guildford
in Surrey, and he ran away from it. He found the teaching all towards the
classics, making for Oxford or Cambridge, and afterwards for a learned
profession. His real nature, as modelled chiefly by his mother, was in
the direction of public service, with, he hoped, some stir in it. The
escape from the school he always related, as if the pages of Robert Louis
Stevenson were open in his hand at the flight of Alan Breck among the