He had also a clear brain, all the better for not having been crammed in childhood; and, therefore, strong in body, full of health and good spirits, and just as keen to get knowledge as to get a rare bird's egg, he began his school-days with everything in his favour.

The result was that 1874 found him in the sixth, and one of the brilliant boys of his time.
Dr.Haig-Brown, as we have said, was sure to have been impressed by B.-P., and there is no need for his assurance that he remembers the boy perfectly.

Of course, when one sits in his medieval study and asks the Doctor to discourse of B.-P., he begins by recalling Ste's love of fun; indeed, it is with no great willingness that he leaves that view of his pupil.

But the boy's inflexibility of purpose, his uprightness and his eagerness to learn are as equally impressed upon the headmaster's mind, and he likes to talk about the exhilarating effect which B.-P.'s virile character had upon the moral tone of the school.
"I never doubted his word," Dr.Haig-Brown told me, and by the tone of the headmaster's voice one realised that B.-P.

was just one of those boys whose word it is impossible to doubt.