at she's an Indian
widow of sorts."

"Indian!" I repeated with more interest.

Quinby looked at me.

"You've been out there yourself, perhaps?"

"It was there I knew Hamilton," said I, naming our common friend in the
Engineers.

"Yet you're sure you never came across Mrs. Lascelles there?"

"India's a large place," I said, smiling as I shook my head.

"I wonder if Hamilton did," speculated Quinby aloud.

"And the Lascelleses," I added, "are another large clan."

"Well," he went on, after a moment's further cogitation, "there's nobody
here can place this particular Mrs. Lascelles; but there are some who
say things which they can tell you themselves. I'm not going to repeat
them if you know anything about the boy. I only wish you knew him well
enough to give him a friendly word of advice!"

"Is it so bad as all that?"

"My dear sir, I don't say there's anything bad about it," returned
Quinby, who seemed to possess a pretty gift of suggestive negation. "But
you may hear another opinion from other people, for you will find that
the whole hotel is talking about it. No," he went on, watching my eyes,
"it's no use looking for them at this time of day; they disappear from
morning to night; if you want to see them you must take a stroll when
everybody else is thinking of turning in. Then you may have better luck.
But here are the letters at last."

The concierge had appeared, hugging an overflowing armful of postal
matter. In another minute there was hardly standing room in the little
hall. My companion uttered his unlovely laugh.

"And here comes the British lion roaring for his London papers! It isn't
his letters he's so keen on, if you notice, Captain Clephane; it's his
_Daily Mail_, with the latest cricket, and after that the war. Teale is
an exception, of course. He has a stack of press-cuttings every day.
You will see him gloating over them in a minute. Ah! the old judge has
got his _Sportsman_; he reads nothing else except the _Sporting Times_,
and he's going back for the Leger. Do you see the man with the blue
spectacles and the peeled nose? He was last Vice Chancellor but one at
Cambridge. No, that's not a Bishop, it's an Archdeacon. All we want is a
Cabinet Minister now; every evening there is a rumour that the Colonial
Secretary is on his way, and most mornings you will hear that he has
actually arrived under cloud of night."

The facetious Quinby did not confine his more or less caustic commentary
t