One day in 1914, I found Selous busy at his desk at Worplesdon. On being asked what was the nature of his work, he said he was writing an account of his school days for a boys' magazine. He did not seem to think it would be of wide interest, and so had written his early adventures in simple form merely for the perusal of boys and had changed his own name to that of "John Leroux."
"It was a damp and dismal winter's day towards the end of January, 1861, on which the boys reassembled after their Christmas holidays at a well-known school not far from London. Nevertheless, despite the gloom and the chilliness of the weather conditions outside the fine old mansion which had but lately been converted into a school, there was plenty of life and animation in the handsome oak-panelled banqueting hall within, at one end of which a great log fire blazed cheerfully. Generally speaking the boys seemed in excellent spirits, or at any rate they made a brave show of being so to keep up appearances, and the music of their laughter and of their fresh young voices was good to hear. Here and there, however, a poor little fellow stood apart, alone and friendless, and with eyes full of tears. Such unfortunates were the new boys, all of them youngsters of nine or ten, who had left their homes for the first time, and whose souls were full of an unutterable misery, after their recent partings from fond mothers and gentle sisters. The youngest, and possibly the most home-sick of all the new boys was standing by himself at some distance from the fire, entirely oblivious of all that was going on around him, for he was too miserable to be able to think of anything but the home in which he had grown to boyhood and all the happiness, which it seemed to his young soul, he could never know again amidst his new surroundings.
"Now as it is this miserable little boy who is to be the hero of this story, he merits, I think, some description. Though only just nine years old he looked considerably more, for he was tall for his age, and strongly built. He was very fair with a delicate pink and white complexion, which many a lady might have envied, whilst his eyes sometimes appeared to be grey and sometimes blue. His features, if not very handsome or regular, were good enough and never failed to give the impression of an open and honest nature. Altogether he would have been considered by most people a typical specimen of an English boy of Anglo-Saxon blood. Yet, as a matter of fact, as in the case of so many Englishmen, there was but little of the Saxon element in his composition, for whilst his father came from the Isle of Jersey, and was therefore of pure Norman descent, his forebears on his mother's side were some of them Scotch and others from a district in the north of England in which the Scandinavian element is supposed to preponderate over the Saxon. But though our hero bore a Norman-French name the idea that he was not a pure-blooded Englishman had never occurred to him, for he knew that his Jersey ancestors had been loyal subjects of the English crown ever since, as a result of the battle of Hastings, Duke William of Normandy became King of England.
"It was not long before the new boy's melancholy meditations were rudely broken in upon by a handsome lad of about his own size, though he was his senior by more than a year. 'Hullo,' said young Jim Kennedy, looking roguishly into the sad, almost tearful, eyes of the young Jerseyman, 'who gave you that collar? Why, you look like Queen Elizabeth.'
"A fond mother had indeed bedecked her darling boy with a beautiful collar of lace work several inches in breadth which spread over his shoulders, but which he soon found it advisable to discard as it made him the butt of every wit in the school. But though the collar was suppressed, the name of Queen Elizabeth, that august lady to whom Kennedy when first addressing him had declared that his mother's fond gift had given him a resemblance, stuck to him for many a long day.
"The laughing, jeering interrogatory, acted like a tonic on the new boy, who though of a gentle, kindly disposition, possessed a very hot temper. His soft grey eyes instantly grew dark with anger as looking his questioner squarely in the face he answered slowly, 'What is that to you, who gave me my collar?'
"'Hullo!' again said Jim Kennedy, 'you're a cocky new boy. What's your name?'
"'My name is John Leroux,' said the young Jerseyman quietly and proudly, for his father had taught him to be proud of his Norman ancestry, and had instilled into his son his own firm belief that the Normans were a superior people to the Saxons, than whom he averred they had done more for the advancement of England to its present great position, and for the spread of the empire of Britain over half the world.
"Kennedy repeated the unfamiliar name two or three times, and then with a derisive laugh said, 'Why, you're a Frenchy.' Now although it was quite true that on his father's side John Leroux was of Norman-French descent, for some reason difficult to analyse, the suggestion that he was a Frenchman filled his young heart with fury. His face grew scarlet and his fists clenched involuntarily as he answered fiercely, 'How dare you call me a Frenchy! I'm not a Frenchman, I'm an Englishman.'
"'No, you're not,' said Kennedy, 'you're a Frenchy, a frog-eating Frenchy.' Without another word young Leroux, from whose face all the colour had now gone, sprang at his tormentor, and taking him unawares, struck him as hard a blow as he was capable of inflicting full in the mouth. And then the fight commenced.