alk about
themselves in a pleasant glow of self-satisfaction. Major Flint, looking
at the various implements and trophies that adorned the room, would
suggest putting a sporting challenge in the _Times_.

"'Pon my word, Puffin," he would say, "I've half a mind to do it.
Retired Major of His Majesty's Forces--the King, God bless him!" (and he
took a substantial sip); "'Retired Major, aged fifty-four, challenges
any gentleman of fifty years or over.'"

"Forty," said Puffin sycophantically, as he thought over what he would
say about himself when the old man had finished.

"Well, we'll halve it, we'll say forty-five, to please you,
Puffin--let's see, where had I got to?--'Retired Major challenges any
gentleman of forty-five years or over to--to a shooting match in the
morning, followed by half a dozen rounds with four-ounce gloves, a game
of golf, eighteen holes, in the afternoon, and a billiard match of two
hundred up after tea.' Ha! ha! I shouldn't feel much anxiety as to the
result."

"My confounded leg!" said Puffin. "But I know a retired captain from His
Majesty's merchant service--the King, God bless him!--aged fifty----"

"Ho! ho! Fifty, indeed!" said the Major, thinking to himself that a
dried-up little man like Puffin might be as old as an Egyptian mummy.
Who can tell the age of a kipper?...

"Not a day less, Major. 'Retired Captain, aged fifty, who'll take on all
comers of forty-two and over, at a steeplechase, round of golf, billiard
match, hopping match, gymnastic competition, swinging Indian clubs----'
No objection, gentlemen? Then carried _nem. con._"

This gaseous mood, athletic, amatory or otherwise (the amatory ones were
the worst), usually faded slowly, like the light from the setting sun or
an exhausted coal in the grate, about the end of Puffin's second
tumbler, and the gentlemen after that were usually somnolent, but
occasionally laid the foundation for some disagreement next day, which
they were too sleepy to go into now. Major Flint by this time would have
had some five small glasses of whisky (equivalent, as he bitterly
observed, to one in pre-war days), and as he measured his next with
extreme care and a slightly jerky movement, would announce it as being
his night-cap, though you would have thought he had plenty of night-caps
on already. Puffin correspondingly took a thimbleful more (the thimble
apparently belonging to some housewife of Anak), and after another
half-hour of sudden single sn