"During the 1914-18 war Lord Lascelles, then a colonel in the Grenadier Guards, was home on leave from the trenches, and was taken by a friend to a club to dine. He saw the Marquis of Clanricarde sitting alone and said, 'I must speak to Uncle. I haven't seen him for years.'

"The Marquis looked up in surprise when the smart Guardsmangreeted him. They talked about the war. Clanricarde listened intentlyto his nephew's stories. Lord Lascelles went back to Ypres and the battle. Lord Clanricarde went home and altered his will.

"In 200 words he made the man who had spoken to him on an impulsethe heir to the Clanricarde fortune of two and a half million pounds."

[When Clanricarde died two months later, Lascelles, still in the trenches, was offered a staff appointment. Though encouraged to take it (to ensure that he might live to enloy his inheritance), Lascelles refused to leave his men and remained in command of his battalion until the armistice.]