small bookcase with a few favourite volumes. To
us in civilised life it seems a great deal of trouble to transport a
lunch basket and a novel to some shady glen to enjoy a day's rest in the
open air, and we would almost rather starve than take the trouble to
carry provisions. In India you speak the word, and as by magic there
arises in the wilderness a little village of tents, furnished with every
necessary luxury--and the luxuries necessary to our degenerate age are
many--a kitchen tent is raised, and a skilled dark-skinned artist
provides you in an hour with a dinner such as you could eat in no hotel.
The treasures of the huge portable ice-chest reveal cooling wines and
soda water to the thirsty soul, and if you are going very far beyond the
reach of the large towns, a small ice-machine is kept at work day and
night to increase the supply while you sleep, and to maintain it while
you wake. In the _connat_ or verandah of the tent, long chairs await you
after your meal, and as you smoke the fragrant cigarette and watch the
stars coming out, you feel as comfortable as though you had been dining
in your own spacious bungalow in Mudnugger.

It was not long before all was ready, and having made many ablutions and
a little toilet, we assembled round the dinner table in the eating tent,
the same party that had dined at Mr. Currie Ghyrkins' house on Sunday
night, with the addition of the little collector of Pegnugger, whose
stories of his outlying district were full of humour and anecdote. The
talk bending in the direction of adventure, Kildare, who had been lately
in South Africa with his regiment, told some tales of Zulus and assegais
and Boers in the Hibernian style of hyperbole. The Irish blood never
comes out so strongly as when a story is to be told, and no amount of
English education and Oxford accent will suppress the tendency. The
brogue is gone, but the love of the marvellous is there still. Isaacs
related the experience of "a man he knew," who had been pulled off his
elephant, howdah and all, and had killed the tiger with a revolver at
half arm's length.

"Ah yes," said the little collector, who had not caught the names of all
the party when introduced, "I read about it at the time; I remember it
very well. It happened in Purneah two years ago. The gentleman was a Mr.
Isaacs of Delhi. Queer name too--remember perfectly." There was a roar
of laughter at this, in which the collector joined vociferously on being
infor