gle, there was no man higher in the
craft than he, and he always opened his conversation with the news that
there would be trouble in the Balkans in the spring. Torpenhow laughed
as he entered.

'Never mind the trouble in the Balkans. Those little states are always
screeching. You've heard about Dick's luck?'

'Yes; he has been called up to notoriety, hasn't he? I hope you keep him
properly humble. He wants suppressing from time to time.'

'He does. He's beginning to take liberties with what he thinks is his
reputation.'

'Already! By Jove, he has cheek! I don't know about his reputation, but
he'll come a cropper if he tries that sort of thing.'

'So I told him. I don't think he believes it.'

'They never do when they first start off. What's that wreck on the
ground there?'

'Specimen of his latest impertinence.' Torpenhow thrust the torn edges
of the canvas together and showed the well-groomed picture to the
Nilghai, who looked at it for a moment and whistled.

'It's a chromo,' said he,--'a chromo-litholeomargarine fake! What
possessed him to do it? And yet how thoroughly he has caught the note
that catches a public who think with their boots and read with their
elbows! The cold-blooded insolence of the work almost saves it; but
he mustn't go on with this. Hasn't he been praised and cockered up too
much? You know these people here have no sense of proportion. They'll
call him a second Detaille and a third-hand Meissonier while his fashion
lasts. It's windy diet for a colt.'

'I don't think it affects Dick much. You might as well call a young
wolf a lion and expect him to take the compliment in exchange for a
shin-bone.

Dick's soul is in the bank. He's working for cash.'

'Now he has thrown up war work, I suppose he doesn't see that the
obligations of the service are just the same, only the proprietors are
changed.'

'How should he know? He thinks he is his own master.'

'Does he? I could undeceive him for his good, if there's any virtue in
print. He wants the whiplash.'

'Lay it on with science, then. I'd flay him myself, but I like him too
much.'

'I've no scruples. He had the audacity to try to cut me out with a woman
at Cairo once. I forgot that, but I remember now.'

'Did he cut you out?'

'You'll see when I have dealt with him. But, after all, what's the
good? Leave him alone and he'll come home, if he has any stuff in him,
dragging or wagging his tail behind him. There's more in a week of