ly, peaceful, unreliable, feeble nondescripts.
That their bodies were contemptible he would have regarded as merely
deplorable, but there was no spirit, no soul, no tradition--nothing upon
which he could work. "Broken-down tapsters and serving-men" indeed, in
Cromwell's bitter words, and to be replaced by "men of a spirit".

They must go--and make way for men--if indeed _men_ could be found, men
who realized that even an Englishman owes something to the community
when he goes abroad, in spite of his having grown up in a land where
honourable and manly National Service is not, and those who keep him
safe are cheap hirelings, cheaply held....

On the arrival of General Miltiades Murger he sat at his feet as soon
as, and whenever, possible; only to discover that he was not only
uninterested in, but obviously contemptuous of, volunteers and
volunteering. When, at the Dearmans' dinner-table, he endeavoured to
talk with the General on the subject he was profoundly discouraged, and
on his asking what was to happen when the white troops went home and
the Indian troops went to the Border, or even to Europe, as soon as
England's inevitable and final war broke out, he was also profoundly
snubbed.

When, after that dinner, General Miltiades Murger made love to Mrs.
Dearman on the verandah, he also made an enemy, a bitter, cruel, and
vindictive enemy of Mr. Ross-Ellison (or rather of Mir Ilderim Dost
Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan).

Nor did his subsequent victory at the Horse Show lessen the enmity,
inasmuch as Mrs. Dearman (whom Ross-Ellison loved with the respectful
platonic devotion of an English gentleman and the fierce intensity of a
Pathan) took General Miltiades Murger at his own valuation, when that
hero described himself and his career to her by the hour. For the
General had succumbed at a glance, and confided to his Brigade-Major
that Mrs. Dearman was a dooced fine woman and the Brigade-Major might
say that he said so, damme.

As the General's infatuation increased he told everybody else
also--everybody except Colonel Dearman--who, of course, knew it already.

He even told Jobler, his soldier-servant, promoted butler, as that
sympathetic and admiring functionary endeavoured to induce him to go to
bed without his uniform.

At last he told Mrs. Dearman herself, as he saw her in the rosy light
that emanated from the fine old Madeira that fittingly capped a noble
luncheon given by him in her honour.

He also told her