ho am
I to presume to choose for you? I am entertaining so many dogs
nowadays that I expect to be eaten out of house and home, so it's
serious, you see. Happy thought--start a pack of hounds! That's
another reason why you should come. I can't offer to show you at the
present season 'the sport of kings, the image of war without its guilt,
and only five-and-twenty per cent. of its danger,' but at least we can
draw up an uncommon fine constitution for the hunt. I know you'll
object that the conjunction of two such stars of chivalry as yourself
and yours truly in the same firmament has hitherto boded war, red war,
but was that our fault? Surely it was merely a proof of our innate
foreknowledge of events that we managed to be in each other's
neighbourhood just when united action was needed. Besides, there's no
combustible material in these parts. That's waiting for the week after
next, when the Agpur frontier business comes up for settlement, and I
have to be back in the Adamkot direction. Come and see me, Hal, if
it's only for a talk and a smoke. Upon my word, I am des-s-s-perately
lonely! Bring a tail as long as MacTavish's if you like, and we'll
indoctrinate them with the science of fox-hunting. Your old Hubshee
would be something of a Jorrocks figure if we stuck him into a hunt
uniform, I'll be bound,--Yours,

ROBERT.

"_P.S._--Admire my self-restraint in keeping back so far the
all-important information that mine will of course be a _Bobbery_ pack."

Neither his friend's pathetic loneliness, nor the inducements he so
lavishly offered, would have tempted Gerrard to leave the capital had
it not been that he had ascertained from the Nawab that the _jaghir_
which he had granted to Rukn-ud-din as the Rani's representative lay in
the direction in which Charteris was now to be found. James Antony had
replied with considerable asperity to the letter giving news of her
whereabouts, as was only natural, since his agents had for a month been
searching for her vainly in the neighbourhood of Benares. He sent the
document which had been prepared for her signature, and directed
Gerrard to use all possible means to obtain a personal interview, in
which he was to assure her that no further steps would be taken to
secure the payment of her jointure until she disbanded her troops and
withdrew into British territory, where a suitable residence would be
provided for her. This, as the natives would have phrased it, was an