"Left all my odds and ends in store," he murmured to a friend, as he called for a brandy pawnee.

"Beastly bore! Must wait orders here for some time!" Skilled at tossing the ball of conversation to and fro, Major Alan Hawke, while at luncheon, artfully planted seeds here and there, to be neatly dished up later for that incipient baronet, Hugh Johnstone.

And yet a graceful shade of dignified reserve lent color to his rumored advancement, and the schemer leaned over the writing table with quite a foreign-office air as he indited his diplomatic note of arrival to his destined prey.
With a grave air he selected his rooms and accommodations to suit his swelling port, and even the club stewards nodded in recognition of the tidal wave of Alan Hawke's mended fortunes.
With due official gravity the man "who had dropped into a good thing," disappeared, to allow the gilded youth of Delhi to carry the gossip to mess and bungalow.

It was a welcome morsel to these merry crows! It was late when the handsome Major returned to find a small pyramid of notes on his table and many letters in his box.

He was in the highest good humor, for the wary Ram Lal had most diplomatically acquitted his task of opening a secret communication.
"Just as I thought," laughed the Major, as he sipped his pale ale in Ram Lal's spacious room of pleasaunce.