glish-speaking natives. But you mustn't talk it to
him, Miss Sewin. You must talk to him in the vernacular. How are you
getting on, by the way?"

"Oh, indifferently. You might have given me a little more help, you
know."

The reproach carried its own sting. Of course I might. What an ass I
was to have thrown away such an opportunity.

"Yes, he's a first-rate boy, Glanton," said the Major. "I don't know
what we should do without him now."

"You haven't started in to punch his head yet, eh Falkner?" I said,
banteringly, rather with the object of turning attention from my share
in this acquisition.

"The curious part of it is that Arlo won't take to him," went on Miss
Sewin. "He's on perfectly good terms with the other boys but he seems
to hate this one. Not that Ivondwe isn't kind to him. He tries all he
can to make friends with him but it's no good. Arlo won't even take
food from him. Now why is this?"

"I'm afraid that's beyond me," I answered, "unless it is that the
instinct of a dog, like that of a horse, isn't quite so supernaturally
accurate as we accustom ourselves to think."

This was a subject that was bound to start discussion, and animated at
that--and soon I found myself in somewhat of a corner, the ladies,
especially, waxing warm over the heretical insinuation I had made. Then
the Major, drawing on his experiences as a cavalry officer, took my side
on the subject of equine intelligence, or lack of it, and Falkner took
up the impartial advocate line, and we were all very jolly and merry
through it all, and certainly conversation did not lag.

Lunch over, the Major announced his intention of having forty winks, and
the rest of us adjourned to the stoep, and roomy cane chairs.

"One thing I like about this country," pronounced Falkner, when he had
got a cigar in full blast, and was lounging luxuriously in a hammock--a
form of recumbency I detest--"and that is that provided you're in the
shade you can always sit out of doors. Now in India you can't. It's a
case of shaded rooms, and _chiks_, and a black beast swinging a punkah--
whom you have to get up and kick every half-hour when he forgets to go
on--till about sundown. Here it's glorious."

I was inclined to share his opinion, and said so. At the same time
there came into my mind the full consciousness that the glorification
here lay in the peculiar circumstances of the case--to wit the presence
and companionship of these two sweet