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 the most wonderful person who had ever been born into this world or into any other. I used to lie awake all night taking myself to pieces as though I had been a watch. Sometimes I dreamed that I was Napoleon, and that it had come to pass that he had been chosen to lead the English pack while he was still at school."

"Well, that dream came true at any rate," said his schoolfellow, with an outburst of enthusiasm. "You were still with us when you pushed those Welshmen all over the place."

The conversation was curtailed at this point by the appearance of the judge's marshal.

"Mr. Northcote," said this courteous and nicely dressed official, "Sir Joseph would be very much obliged if you would come round and see him in his room."

"Right you are! I will be round in a minute," said Northcote, shaking hands with his old schoolfellow and declining an invitation to dine in Eaton Square the next evening but one.