If it had been possible for Theodore Savageto place on record for those who came afterhim the story of his life and experiences, hewould have been the first to admit that theinterest of the record lay in circumstance andnot in himself. From beginning to end hewas much what surroundings made of him;in his youth the product of a public school,Wadham and the Civil Service; in maturityand age a toiler with his hands in the companyof men who lived brutishly. In his twenties,no doubt, he was frequently bored by hisclerking duties and the routine of the DistributionOffice; later on there were seasons whenall that was best in him cried out against confinementin a life that had no aspiration; butneither boredom nor resentment ever drovehim to revolt or set him to the moulding of10circumstance. If he was destined to live as alocal tradition and superman of legend, thehonour was not gained by his talents or personalachievements; he had to thank for itan excellent constitution, bequeathed him byhis parents, certain traces of refinement inmanner and speech and the fears of very ignorantmen.

When the Distribution Office—like hisHepplewhite furniture, his colour-prints andhis English glass—was with yesterday’s seventhousand years, it is more than possible thatTheodore Savage, looking back on his youth,saw existence, till he neared the age of thirty,as a stream of scarcely ruffled content. Sittingcrouched to the fire in the sweat-laden airof his cabin or humped idly on a hillside in thedusk of summer evening, it may well haveseemed, when his thoughts strayed backwards,that the young man who once was impossiblyhimself was a being whom care did not touch.What he saw with the eye of his mind andmemory was a neat young Mr. Savage whowas valeted in comfortable chambers and whoworked, without urgence, for limited hours, ina room that looked on Whitehall. Who in hisplentiful leisure gained a minor reputationon the golf-links! Who fre

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