with his boot! No! Quickly we put
water in the soup; with much energy we opened a tin of salmon, cut up
onions, fetched a cucumber from the vegetable garden for salad. Then in
the fowl-house, what a cackling and screeching as the _masalchi_ chased
fowls and cut their throats! _Jhut!_ they were cleaned and how long does
it take to grill meat? In fifteen minutes from the order, the dinner was
ready, pudding and all. When a store-room is well-stocked, it is like
_jadu_[14] to make a dinner for one capable of feeding six and even
eight!"

[Footnote 14: Magic.]

All great talkers are unconscious egotists, as the Merediths found the
Reverend John Pugh who enjoyed the sound of his own voice even when he
was not in the pulpit, and retailed stock jokes and anecdotes to the
company in general, forgetful of the fact that the same jokes and
anecdotes had been recounted by him at every house on his visiting list.
At dessert Joyce was glad to slip away to the drawing-room taking with
her the doctor, who was permitted to smoke while he played to her on the
piano.

Joyce noticed that he was disinclined for conversation and was out of
sorts and dull, as though inwardly disturbed and uninterested even at
his music. He took an early opportunity to leave and was accompanied to
the doorstep by Joyce, her husband being still pinned to the dining-room
by the parson whose anecdotes were inexhaustible.

"When next you see your friend, Miss Bright," said he, apropos of
nothing, as he shook hands again, "tell her, will you?--that I know how
to take a snub."

"Why?--has Honor snubbed you?" she asked surprised.

He smiled unpleasantly. "It was equal to a knock-down blow."

"But that is so unlike Honor. How do you mean?"

"I am not complaining, for I dare say I deserve it, but I would like her
to know that I shall not willingly put myself in the way of the same
again."

"Oh--" light had dawned on Joyce. "It must be because she thinks you
failed Elsie Meek. She heard that you never went to Sombari on Friday
night though you left the party for the purpose of seeing how she was
doing. Honor came here straight from the Mission."

"It was on the steps of the Mission bungalow that we met, and I was
sentenced without a charge."

"Are you very angry?"

"I don't think I am," he returned proudly. "It is nothing of
consequence."

"But would it have made any difference had you gone?" she pressed. "I
ask because I feel responsible for having k