I found a military Johnny hanging round on a loose end at the
club, and took him home to lunch once or twice. He'd spent most
of his life on the Indian frontier, building roads, and relieving
famines and minimizing earthquakes, and all that sort of thing
that one does do on frontiers. He could talk sense to a peevish
cobra in fifteen native languages, and probably knew what to do if
you found a rogue elephant on your croquet-lawn; but he was shy
and diffident with women. I told my mother privately that he was
an absolute woman-hater; so, of course, she laid herself out to
flirt all she knew, which isn't a little."
"And was the gentleman responsive?"
"I hear he told some one at the club that he was looking out for a
Colonial job, with plenty of hard work, for a young friend of his,
so I gather that he has some idea of marrying into the family."
"You seem destined to be the victim of the reformation, after
all."
Claws wiped the trace of Turkish coffee and the beginnings of a
smile from his lips, and slowly lowered his dexter eyelid. Which,
being interpreted, probably meant, "I DON'T think!"
TOBERMORY
It was a chill, rain-washed afternoon of a late August day, that
indefinite season when partridges are still in security or cold
storage, and there is nothing to hunt--unless one is bounded on
the north by the Bristol Channel, in which case one may lawfully
gallop after fat red stags.
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