to it for me?"

The Doctor nodded. "With pleasure, Miss Hannay. It is a thing I enjoy.
There is nothing more lamentable than to see the ignorant, and I may
almost say brutal, way in which people bunch flowers up into great
masses and call that decoration. They might just as well bunch up so
many masses of bright colored rags. The shape of the flower, its manner
of growth, and its individuality are altogether lost, and the sole
effect produced is that of a confused mass of color. I will undertake
that part of the business, and you had better leave the buying of the
flowers to me."

"Certainly, Doctor," the Major said; "I will give you carte blanche."

"Well, I must see your dinner service, Major, so that I may know about
its color, and what you have got to put the flowers into."

"I will have a regular parade tomorrow morning after breakfast, if it
would be convenient for you to look in then, and at the same time I will
get you to have a talk with Rumzan and the cook. I am almost as new to
giving dinner parties as Isobel is. When one has half a dozen men to
dine with one at the club, one gives the butler notice and chooses
the wine, and one knows that it will be all right; but it is a
very different thing when you have to go into the details yourself.
Ordinarily I leave it entirely to Rumzan and the cook, and I am bound to
say they do very well, but this is a different matter."

"We will talk it over with them together, Major. You can seem to consult
me, but it must come from you to them, or else you will be getting their
backs up. Thank goodness, Indian servants don't give themselves the airs
English ones do; but human nature is a good deal the same everywhere,
and the first great rule, if you want any domestic arrangements to go
off well, is to keep the servants in good temper."

"We none of us like to be interfered with, Doctor."

"A wise man is always ready to be taught," the Doctor said
sententiously.

"Well, there are exceptions, Doctor. I remember, soon after I joined, a
man blew off two of his fingers. A young surgeon who was here wanted
to amputate the hand; he was just going to set about it when a staff
surgeon came in and said that it had better not be done, for that
natives could not stand amputations. The young surgeon was very much
annoyed. The staff surgeon went away next day. There was a good deal of
inflammation, and the young surgeon decided to amputate. The man never
rallied from the operation