or more, should be smothered in dust."

"Unless you washed the dust down just once in a while," said Major
Flint.

"Just so. Brain-work's an exhausting process; requires a little
stimulant now and again," said Puffin. "I sit in my chair, you
understand, and perhaps doze for a bit after my supper, and then I'll
get my maps out, and have them handy beside me. And then, if there's
something interesting the evening paper, perhaps I'll have a look at it,
and bless me, if by that time it isn't already half-past ten or eleven,
and it seems useless to tackle archaeology then. And I just--just while
away the time till I'm sleepy. But there seems to be a sort of legend
among the ladies here, that I'm a great student of local topography and
Roman roads, and all sorts of truck, and I find it better to leave it at
that. Tiresome to go into long explanations. In fact," added Puffin in a
burst of confidence, "the study I've done on Roman roads these last six
months wouldn't cover a threepenny piece."

Major Flint gave a loud, choking guffaw and beat his fat leg.

"Well, if that's not the best joke I've heard for many a long day," he
said. "There I've been in the house opposite you these last two years,
seeing your light burning late night after night, and thinking to
myself, 'There's my friend Puffin still at it! Fine thing to be an
enthusiastic archaeologist like that. That makes short work of a lonely
evening for him if he's so buried in his books or his maps--Mapps, ha!
ha!--that he doesn't seem to notice whether it's twelve o'clock or one
or two, maybe!' And all the time you've been sitting snoozing and
boozing in your chair, with your glass handy to wash the dust down."

Puffin added his falsetto cackle to this merriment.

"And, often I've thought to myself," he said, "'There's my friend the
Major in his study opposite, with all his diaries round him, making a
note here, and copying an extract there, and conferring with the Viceroy
one day, and reprimanding the Maharajah of Bom-be-boo another. He's
spending the evening on India's coral strand, he is, having tiffin and
shooting tigers and Gawd knows what--'"

The Major's laughter boomed out again.

"And I never kept a diary in my life!" he cried. "Why there's enough
cream in this situation to make a dishful of meringues. You and I, you
know, the students of Tilling! The serious-minded students who do a hard
day's work when all the pretty ladies have gone to bed. Often and