un helmets or double terai hats, pending a
descent on a Piccadilly hatter two days hence. They move slowly and
languidly; the ordinary piercing and dominant English enunciation has
fallen to modulation; their eyes, while observant and alert, look tired.
It is as though the far countries have sucked something from the pith of
them in exchange for great experiences that nevertheless seem of little
value; as though these men, having met at last face to face the ultimate
of what the earth has to offer in the way of danger, hardship,
difficulty, and the things that try men's souls, having unexpectedly
found them all to fall short of both the importance and the final
significance with which human-kind has always invested them, were now
just a little at a loss. Therefore they stretch their long, lean frames
in the wicker chairs, they sip the long drinks at their elbows, puff
slowly at their long, lean cheroots, and talk spasmodically in short
sentences.

Of quite a different type are those going out--young fellows full of
northern health and energy, full of the eagerness of anticipation, full
of romance skilfully concealed, self-certain, authoritative, clear
voiced. Their exit from the bus is followed by a rain of hold-alls,
bags, new tin boxes, new gun cases, all lettered freshly--an enormous
kit doomed to diminution. They overflow the place, ebb towards their
respective rooms; return scrubbed and ruddy, correctly clad, correctly
unconscious of everybody else; sink into more wicker chairs. The quiet
brown and yellow men continue to puff at their cheroots, quite eclipsed.
After a time one of them picks up his battered old sun helmet and goes
out into the street. The eyes of the newcomers follow him. They fall
silent; and their eyes, under cover of pulled moustache, furtively
glance towards the lean man's companions. Then on that office falls a
great silence, broken only by the occasional rare remarks of the quiet
men with the cheroots. The youngsters are listening with all their ears,
though from their appearance no one would suspect that fact. Not a
syllable escapes them. These quiet men have been there; they have seen
with their own eyes; their lightest word is saturated with the mystery
and romance of the unknown. Their easy, matter-of-fact, everyday
knowledge is richly wonderful. It would seem natural for these
young-young men to question these old-young men of that which they
desire so ardently to know; but that isn't don