The Pool in the Desert

d myself to him for years before Dora made such a preposterous point of it-years in which, as I

also there belongs a uniform and a cocked hat sufficiently dramatic, but persons who serve the State primarily with the intelligence are supposed to have a mind above buttons; and when I decided that my photograph should compete with the Assistant Adjutant-General's, I gave him every sartorial advantage. I gathered that the offer, cabinet size, of this gent

cil, the native dignitary with a diamond-tipped aigrette in the front of his turban. The copy in oils of some old Italian landscape, very black and yellow, also held its invariable place, and above it, very near the ceiling, a line of canvases which, had I not been led past them to inspect our ruler and his family, who sat transfixed on an easel in a resplendent frame, would probably have escaped my attention. I did proper homage to the easel, and then turned to those pictures. It was plain enough who had painted them. Armour's broad brush stood out all over them. They were mostly Indian sporting subjects, the incident a trifle elliptical, the drawing unequal, but the verve and feeling unmistakeable, and colour to send a quiver of glorious acquiescence th

till, 'I see you've got some

rt in a shrug. 'Yass,' he said, 'I haf some of Mr. Armour's work there. This o

is things were to be seen ou

e seen here. There

I demanded, slightly nettled. 'People

sperated. 'Who will buy these pictures? Nobod

u should advise him to exhibit some of his local

tely chosen. Mr. Kauffer

ott! I see his work. I see he paint a very goot horse, very goot animal subject. I bring him oudt on contract, five hundred rupees the monn

es at my office were my business, and this was not, but no matter of Imperial concern seemed at the moment half so urgently to require probing. 'Surely,' I sa

the native prince solely on lofty political lines were hardly likely to remember how largely he bulked in the humbler relations of trade; but there was more than one Calcutta establishment, Mr. Kauffer declared, that would be obliged to p

o buy landscapes. They never do. I know of only one distinguishe

and he photograph the Chief and his arab, the Chief and his Prime Minister, the Chief in his durbar, palace, gardens, stables-everything. Presen

id, 'I beg

ited apparently by the unfortunate canvas to which he pointed, 'when Armour go to make tha

ed, dashing thing, and the treatment of all

sir, I overboil-do you kn

't say

zat picture; he is a good fellow, too

ood,' I protest

h, you onderstand, no. You see this one?

now the Nawab well, the young sc

ied? Oh, yes; dignified, but, you observe, also black. The

ed. 'He's the darkest native I'

en I photograph that Nawab-any nawab-I do not

ion, and it did not grow less so as Mr. Kauffer continued to unfold it. Armour had not, apparently, proceeded to the scene of his labours without instructions. In the pig-sticking delineation he had been specially told that the Maharajah and the pig were to be in the middle, with the rest nowhere and nothing between. Other injunctions were as clear, and as clearly disregarded. Armour, like the Maharajahs, had simply 'REfuse' to abandon his premeditated conceptions of how the thing should be done. And here was the result, for the laughter of the gods and anybody else that might see. I asked Kauffer unguardedly if no sort of pressure could be brought to bear upon these chaps to make them pay up. His face beaming with hope and intelligence, he suggested that I should appr

rly fell up

ire first,' he assured me, and I sincerely h

t I get it, if I do get it, at Mr. Armour's price. I'm n

ut I sink I sell you that Por