The Pool in the Desert

he should return it at all. I had arranged in my own mind that he should be governed by the most honest impulses and the most approved intentions up to the point of departur

on, but I hardly think that anybody who has followed my little account to this point will think them unjustifiable. I looked at his cheque with disgust. That a man turns out better than you expected is no reason why you such no

come a taxpayer, a churchgoer, a householder, a husband. As I gazed, the signature changed from that of a gnome with luminous eyes who inhabited an inaccessible crag among the rhododendrons to that of

l dismissed poor Fry to his reward was not unkind, but it distinctly implied that the removal of Fry should include the removal of his ideas and methods, and the substitution of something rather more up to date. It remarked that the Bengali student h

e him a living, but there was no reason why a more captious spirit, in view of the great advantages, should not accommodate itself to the routine that might present itself. The post was in the gift of the Government of Bengal, but that was no reason why the Government of Bengal should not be grateful in the difficulty of making a choice for a hint from us. The difficulty was really great. They would have to write home and

ur's nomination. Should I blow that breath? These happy thoughts must always occur to somebody. This one had occurred to me. Ten to one

t complexion over the idyll. It would turn that interlacing wreat

have nothing

put a magnum of Pommery to cool at seven precisely. I had some idea, I suppose, of drinking with Armour to his eternal discomf

ghly personal to communicate, a matter in which I could, if I only would, be of the greatest possible assistance. From these appearances twenty years had taught me to fly to any burrow, but your dinner-table offers no retreat; you are hoist, so to speak, on your own carving-fork. There are men, of course, and even women, who have scruples about taking advantage of so intimate and unguarded an opportunity, but Armour, I rapidly decided, was not one of these. His soph

to apologize for the fish. 'I suppose one must remember,' I said, '

some wine, 'that there is something very good going in Calc

he happy thought-had oc

id, with interes

e School of Art. A ma

r in the considering, measuring way with which we suggest to candidates for posts that their fit

not look it, but years often f

vile c

you think,' he said anxiousl

d, with amazing calmness; 'but I must

and disappointed; he was really a fool of an applicant, quite ready to retire from the

u would like tea

only pupil here has

fool. We talked of other things. I led him on to betray his ludicrous lack of knowledge of the world in various dire

ur application in to the Director of Public Instruction,

ossessed diplomas or some such things bearing names which were bound to have weight with a Department of Public In

lk about. He surprised me one day with a piece of news of my own department, which was a liberty of a very serious kind, but I forgave him upon finding that it was not true. He rode Lamb's weight-carriers, to cross which his short legs were barely adequate, and apart from this disa

n for granted-but I was only one of the little circle that wondered how soon it might venture upon open congratulations. The rest of us knew as much, it seemed, as Edward Harris did. Lady Pilkey asked him point-blank, and he said what his daughter found to like in the fellow the Lord only knew, and he

mber, by the mail tonga of the third of June. He dropped into my office to say goodbye, but I was busy with the Member and could see nob

thing for him to do, especially as Strobo happened to be in Calcutta himself at the time. He went and stayed with Strobo, and every day he and the Signor, c

ed and sang as well as Strobo fiddled. I believe they dined together every night, this precious quartet, and exchanged in various tongues their impressions of India under British control. 'A houri in stays,' the lady who was a Pole described it. I believe she herself was a houri without them. And at

any precision or certainty until the newspaper arrived containing his name immediately under that of Herr Vanrig and Mme. Dansky in the list of passengers who had sailed per S.S. Dupleix on the fifteenth of June for Colombo. There it was, 'I. Armour,' as significant as ever to two persons intimately concerned with it, but no longer a wrap

rstood-there was enough left in me to understand-Armour's terrified escape. I was happy in the thought of him, sailing down the Bay. The possibilities of marriage, social position, assured income, support in old age, the strands in the bond that held him, the bond that hold

n I supposed or intended, for before I went away she told me the whole story. By that time she had heard from Ceylon, a delicious letter with a pen-and-ink sketch at the top. I have it still; it infallibly brought the man back to me. But it was all over; she assured me with shining eyes that it was. The reason of her plainly boundless thankfulness that Armour

expensive and the country very slow; and with my K.C.S.I. came the offer of the Membership, so we went back to Simla for three perfectly unnecessary years, which we now loo

tation of M