re going deeper and deeper into the mire of
difficulties and reckless expenditure that characterised their campaign
in Afghanistan in the autumn of 1879; and when I had assured myself,
furthermore, by the perusal of a request for the remittance of twenty
pounds, that my nephew, the only relation, male or female, that I have
in the world, had not come to the untimely death he so richly deserved,
I fell to considering what book I should read. And from one thing to
another, I found myself established about ten o'clock at the table in
the dining-tent, with Miss Westonhaugh at one side, worsted work,
writing materials and all, just as she had been at the same table a week
or so before. At her request I had continued my writing when she came
in. I was finishing off a column of a bloodthirsty article for the
_Howler_; it probably would come near enough to the mark, for in India
you may print a leader anywhere within a month of its being written, and
if it was hot enough to begin with, it will still answer the purpose.
Journalism is not so rapid in its requirements as in New York, but, on
the other hand, it is more lucrative.

"Mr. Griggs, are you _very_ busy?"

"Oh dear, no--nothing to speak of," I went on writing--the
unprecedented--folly--the--blatant--charlatanism----

"Mr. Griggs, do you understand these things?"

----Lord Beaconsfield's--"I think so, Miss Westonhaugh"--Afghan
policy----There, I thought,

I think that would rouse Mr. Currie Ghyrkins, if he ever saw it, which I
trust he never will. I had done, and I folded the numbered sheets in an
oblong bundle.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Westonhaugh; I was just finishing a sentence. I
am quite at your service."

"Oh no! I see you are too busy."

"Not in the least, I assure you. Is it that tangled skein? Let me help
you."

"Oh thank you. It is so tiresome, and I am not in the least inclined to
be industrious."

I took the wool and set to work. It was very easy, after all; I pulled
the loops through, and back again and through from the other side, and I
found the ends, and began to wind it up on a piece of paper. It is
singular, though, how the unaided wool can tie itself into every kind of
a knot--reef, carrick bend, bowline, bowline in a bight, not to mention
a variety of hitches and indescribable perversions of entanglement. I
was getting on very well, though. I looked up at her face, pale and
weary with a sleepless night, but beautiful--ah yes--beautiful bey