It begins
with a general dispersal of the Durbar participants:
'Back to their homes in Himalayan heights
The stale pale elephants of Cutch Behar
Roll like great galleons on a tideless sea--'"
"I don't believe Cutch Behar is anywhere near the Himalayan
region," interrupted Bertie. "You ought to have an atlas on hand
when you do this sort of thing; and why stale and pale?"
"After the late hours and the excitement, of course," said Clovis;
"and I said their HOMES were in the Himalayas. You can have
Himalayan elephants in Cutch Behar, I suppose, just as you have
Irish-bred horses running at Ascot."
"You said they were going back to the Himalayas," objected Bertie.
"Well, they would naturally be sent home to recuperate. It's the
usual thing out there to turn elephants loose in the hills, just
as we put horses out to grass in this country."
Clovis could at least flatter himself that he had infused some of
the reckless splendour of the East into his mendacity.
"Is it all going to be in blank verse?" asked the critic.
"Of course not; 'Durbar' comes at the end of the fourth line."
"That seems so cowardly; however, it explains why you pitched on
Cutch Behar.
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