of the
'paucity of support accorded to him in his operations.' Gad, it might
have been one fat brigadier slangin' another! Then he went into the
Staff Corps."

"That--is--entirely--Stalky," said Abanazar from his arm-chair.

"You've come across him, too?" I said.

"Oh, yes," he replied in his softest tones. "I was at the tail of
that--that epic. Don't you chaps know?"

We did not--Infant, McTurk, and I; and we called for information very
politely.

"'Twasn't anything," said Tertius. "We got into a mess up in the
Khye-Kheen Hills a couple o' years ago, and Stalky pulled us through.
That's all."

McTurk gazed at Tertius with all an Irishman's contempt for the
tongue-tied Saxon.

"Heavens!" he said. "And it's you and your likes govern Ireland.
Tertius, aren't you ashamed?"

"Well, I can't tell a yarn. I can chip in when the other fellow starts
_bukhing_. Ask him." He pointed to Dick Four, whose nose gleamed
scornfully over the rug.

"I knew you wouldn't," said Dick Four. "Give me a whiskey and soda. I've
been drinking lemon-squash and ammoniated quinine while you chaps were
bathin' in champagne, and my head's singin' like a top."

He wiped his ragged mustache above the drink; and, his teeth chattering
in his head, began: "You know the Khye-Kheen-Malo't expedition, when
we scared the souls out of 'em with a field force they daren't fight
against? Well, both tribes--there was a coalition against us--came in
without firing a shot; and a lot of hairy villains, who had no more
power over their men than I had, promised and vowed all sorts of things.
On that very slender evidence, Pussy dear--"

"I was at Simla," said Abanazar, hastily.

"Never mind, you're tarred with the same brush. On the strength of
those tuppenny-ha'penny treaties, your asses of Politicals reported the
country as pacified, and the Government, being a fool, as usual, began
road-makin'--dependin' on local supply for labor. 'Member _that_, Pussy?
'Rest of our chaps who'd had no look-in during the campaign didn't think
there'd be any more of it, and were anxious to get back to India. But
I'd been in two of these little rows before, and I had my suspicions.
I engineered myself, _summa ingenio_, into command of a road-patrol--no
shovellin', only marching up and down genteelly with a guard. They'd
withdrawn all the troops they could, but I nucleused about forty
Pathans, recruits chiefly, of my regiment, and sat tight at the
base-camp while the roa