such speech of ironical humility, was on the
captain's lips; but, in spite of himself, he felt
complacent. Contempt and vanity were struggling
for him. So he listened to hear more.

"Miss Manuel is very curious about you, and
has all sorts of speculations. She says she is
sure, from your face——"

An expression of interest spread over Fermor's
face. But there was a Thersites in the
regiment just opposite, a rough, loud-speaking,
rude, and horribly truthful, a graduated
professor of chaff, and he was listening. Fermor
justly considered him a "low" fellow, but shrank
from him as from a social chimney-sweep.

"Look at Fermor," he said; " he thinks every
young lady in love with him. He turns back on
the roads if he meets one, for fear of disturbing
her peace of mind. Ho! ho!"

And an orchestra of "ho! ho's!" from the
instrumentalists about, who relished this coarse
music of Thersites, broke out.

Fermor turned red, and addressed his neighbour.
He made it a rule, he always said, to take
no notice of these "low" jokes. But John
Hanbury, being a simple good-humoured creature
that knew how to laugh, did laugh now very
loud. It seemed to him such a comical accident
that Thersites should have actually stumbled on
the true state of things.

"Why," said he, "as to walking along the
roads, I can tell you something," he said, looking
slyly at Fermor. "You know there's no hiding
of one's face exactly."

"O, ho!" said Thersites. "Was there ever
anything like this? What did I say? Now we
shall hear something." And the orchestra rubbed
its hands, and even struck its thighs with delight.

John Hanbury was one of those who
innocently overlook what is strict propriety, in the
satisfaction of giving pleasure to others.

"I don't think it is quite fair," he said, looking
from side to side; "but since——"

Fermor was blazing and glowing. "I must
request," he said, in a low hasty voice to his
neighbour, "there will be no more of this. I
don't like it."

But Hanbury had been trained in wild places
of India, where a joke, being a scarce thing, and,
once trapped, is not enlarged without a sort of
hunt.

So he nodded his head pleasantly to the right
and to the left, as if he had a secret, and said,
"He doesn't like it, though. It wouldn't be
fair, you know."

Again the orchestra broke in, fortissimo:
"Come, come! Nonsense! Out with it."

Major-General Shortall and Sir Charles Longman,
who had long since strayed away and got
lost in the bogs and marshes of conversation,
where every step cost them infinite pains, heard
the roar of the instruments, and accepted it as
though it were a stick which some one held out
to help them out.

"Cheerful," said the general. "What is it?"

"Rather some joke, I think," said Sir Charles,
doubtfully, and gluing on his eye-glass to try
and get a good view of it.

"O, sir," said Captain Thersites, "only a
good thing about Fermor. Tell it, Mr. Hanbury,
the general wants to hear it."

Hanbury, still relishing the thing with delight,
though, indeed, there was neither joke nor story
in the whole, was about to begin, when he
chanced to look at his neighbour, and saw his
crimson cheeks and his curled lip. Fermor said,
"I request you will not take any freedom with
my name; at least, I am sure you will respect that
of those ladies——"

"Ah! don't mind him," roared the orchestra,
suspecting what was going on. But this was a
new view for Hanbury, who coloured in his turn.
It was conveyed in an unpleasant, even an
offensive manner, but the caution was just. His
rough, coarse provincialism was stupidly making
free with the sacred names of ladies. His face
changed in a second,

"Let me suggest," said Fermor, seeing the
effect, and suddenly taking out his razor for
stropping, "a mess table is scarcely the place—
you understand."

Nothing could be got out of Hanbury.
Disappointed, the crowd, led by Thersites, followed
at the heels of Fermor. Once in six months or
so they had their revenge in this shape for
many supercilious outrages. Personalities were
showered on the luckless man, and even the
general was seen to smile in a dry way. Fermor
glowed and grew white, and glowed again, and
devoted his neighbour to the fury of the gods.

The latter, quite sobered, whispered him
earnestly, "Thank you a thousand times! I was
so near doing it, and you saved me. I should
never have forgiven myself."

That depended very much on his own turn of
mind, but he might be sure of this, that Captain
Fermor would never forgive him that public
mortification. The captain chafed secretly, and
looked at his glass as though he were chewing
aloe-leaves. But there was worse in store for
him.

Some one had flung the party at the head of
the table a plank in the shape of a little bit of
Indian discussion. "They have such odd words
now," said General Shortall. "'Pon my soul, I
can't make 'em out. They talk in the Times
about wallahs and fellahs, and such stuff. Now,
we always called them Blacks simply, and niggers
—and as good a word as any, I say."

Captain Fermor, superior always to his own
herd, was literary and well read, getting down
green cases from Mr. Mudie. Part of his ritual was
setting "fellows" right on matters of information.
So now, brooding and brooding over his
injuries, he saw aid at hand, and listened.

"What—er—is a wallah?" said Sir Charles.

"And they have fellows they call ryots," said
the general. "Not but that they have plenty of
'em out there—rows enough." Which remark
brought forth, as was fitting, obsequious