ven a bit of staying power. Luck may turn my
way yet and there's always the Pamirs! At the worst, the Russians--the
Afghans,--or those fellows up in Sikkim and Hill Tipperah! An
artillerist is always welcome there!" But even in his moral desperation,
he hung his head, for a flush of his boyhood's bright ambitions returned
to shame him. An old song jingled in his memory, "When I first put this
uniform on." He lapsed into a bitter reverie!

The soldier of fortune was finally aroused from a brown study by the
impassive steward presenting two great dishes. The clatter of some late
convive seating himself also caused him to turn his head.

"Hello, Anstruther! You are a long way from staff headquarters here!"
quietly said Hawke, as the new arrival gazed at him in a mute surprise.

Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther put up his monocle and duly
answered: "I thought that you were still in Calcutta, Hawke." There was
a faint noli me tangere air in the young staff officer's manner, and
yet mere propinquity drew them together in a few minutes. With the
insouciance of men bred in club and at mess, the two soldiers soon
drifted into an easy chat, meeting on safe grounds. They calmly
ignored the surrounding civilians, regardless of the attractions of two
falcon-eyed Chicago beauties, loud of voice and brilliantly overdressed,
who were guiding "Popper" and "Mommer" over the continent. These
resplendent daughters of Columbia already boasted a train consisting
of a French count (of a very old and shadowy regime), a singularly
second-hand looking Italian marquis, a wooden-soldier figured German
baron, and a sad-eyed, distant-looking Russian prince, whose bold Tartar
glances rested hungrily upon both Miss "Phenie" and Miss "Genie" Forbes.

The Anglo-Indians, however, calmly pursued their dinner and gossip
regardless of the fact that Miss "Phenie" had violently nudged Miss
"Genie," and whispered in a stage aside: "Say, Genie, look at those two
English fellows! They are something like--I bet you that they are
two Lords!" The approval of the gilded Western maidens, whose father
systematically assassinated a thousand porkers per diem, was lost upon
the chance-met acquaintances. "I must get back to India, by hook or
crook," mused Alan Hawke, and therefore, he very delicately played his
wary fish, the sybaritic young swell of the staff. Captain the Honorable
Anson Anstruther's reserve soon melted under the skillful bonhomie of
the astute