"I remember the last time I was in London I took out to supper--none of the coryphees you boys are so proud of being seen about with, but"-- and, pausing impressively, he named a reigning lady of the light-opera stage.
"You did!" exclaimed a subaltern.
"I did," he replied complacently.
"What did you talk about ?" asked Major Dewes, and the Political Officer suddenly grew serious.
"I was very interested," he said quietly.

"I got knowledge which it was good for me to have.

I saw something which it was well for me to see.

I wished--I wish now--that some of the rulers and the politicians could have seen what I saw that night." A brief silence followed upon his words, and during that silence certain sounds became audible--the beating of tom-toms and the cries of men.

The dinner-table was set in the verandah of an inner courtyard open to the sky, and the sounds descended into that well quite distinctly, but faintly, as if they were made at a distance in the dark, open country.
The six men seated about the table paid no heed to those sounds; they had had them in their ears too long.