It would be unseemly--unfitting--incon--" "Oh, I am no judge of course of what a Boyce may do!" said his wife carelessly.

"I leave that to you and the neighbourhood." Mr.Boyce looked uncomfortable, cooled down, and presently when the coffee came back asked his wife for a fresh supply in tones from which all bellicosity had for the time departed.

He was a small and singularly thin man, with blue wandering eyes under the blackest possible eyebrows and hair.

The cheeks were hollow, the complexion as yellow as that of the typical Anglo-Indian.

The special character of the mouth was hidden by a fine black moustache, but his prevailing expression varied between irritability and a kind of plaintiveness.