"It was a prosaic way of forming a friendship, but it was effective.

I was laid by the heels for ten days, and Trevor used to come in to inquire after me.

At first it was only a minute's chat, but soon his visits lengthened, and before the end of the term we were close friends.

He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirits and energy, the very opposite to me in most respects, but we had some subjects in common, and it was a bond of union when I found that he was as friendless as I.

Finally he invited me down to his father's place at Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I accepted his hospitality for a month of the long vacation.

Old Trevor was evidently a man of some wealth and consideration, a J. P., and a landed proprietor.

Donnithorpe is a little hamlet just to the north of Langmere, in the country of the Broads.

The house was an oldfashioned, widespread, oak-beamed brick building, with a fine lime-lined avenue leading up to it.

There was excellent wild-duck shooting in the fens, remarkably good fishing, a small but select library, taken over, as I understood, from a former occupant, and a tolerable cook, so that he would be a fastidious man who could not put in a pleasant month there.

Trevor senior was a widower, and my friend his only son. There had been a daughter, I heard, but she had died of diphtheria while on a visit to Birmingham.