ANTHONY.-'Can't. He has his leave all right, but he's so dipped he can't take it, and I don't think his name on paper would raise four annas. That's in confidence, though.

MACKESY.—All the Station knows it.

ANTHONY. -"I suppose I shall have to die here," he said, squirming all across the bed. He's quite made up his mind to Kingdom Come. And I know he has nothing more than a wet-weather tummy if he could only keep a hand on himself. BLAYNE. That's bad. That's very bad. Poor little Miggy. Good little chap, too. I say

ANTHONY.-What do you say?

BLAYNE.-Well, look here-anyhow. If it's like that—as you say I say fifty.

CURTISS.-I say fifty.

MACKESY.--I go twenty better.

DOONE.Bloated Croesus of the Bar! I say fifty. Jervoise, what do you say? Hi! Wake up!

JERVOISE.-Eh? What's that? What's that?

CURTISS-We want a hundred dibs from you. You're a bachelor drawing a gigantic income, and there's a man in a hole.

JERVOISE. What man? Any one dead?

BLAYNE. No, but he'll die if you don't give the hundred. Here! Here's a peg voucher. You can see what we've signed for, and a chaprassi will come round to-morrow to collect it. So there will be no trouble.

JERVOISE.—(Signing).—One hundred, E. M. J. There you are (feebly). It isn't one of your jokes, is it?

BLAYNE. No, it really is wanted. Anthony, you were the biggest poker-winner last week, and you've defrauded the taxcollector too long. Sign!

ANTHONY.-Let's see. Three fifties and a seventy-two twenty-three twenty-say four twenty. That'll give him a month clear at the Hills. Many thanks, you men, I'll send round the chaprassi to-morrow,

Curtiss. You must engineer his taking the stuff, and of

course you mustn't

ANTHONY. Of course.

It would never do. He'd weep

with gratitude over his evening drink.

BLAYNE. That's just what he would do, damn him. Oh! I say, Anthony, you pretend to know everything. Have you heard about Gaddy?

ANTHONY.-No.

Divorce Court at last?

BLAYNE. Worse. He's engaged?

ANTHONY.-How much? He can't be !

BLAYNE. He is. He's going to be married in a few weeks. Markyn told me at the Judge's this evening. It's pukka.

ANTHONY.--You don't say so? Holy Moses! There'll be a shine in the tents of Kedar.

CURTISS.-'Regiment cut up rough, think you?

ANTHONY.-'Don't know anything about the Regiment.
MACKESY. It is bigamy, then?

ANTHONY.-Maybe.

Do you mean to say that you men

have forgotten, or is there more charity in the world than I thought?

DOONE. You don't look pretty when you are trying to keep a secret. You bloat. Explain.

ANTHONY.-Mrs. Herriott !

BLAYNE. (after a long pause, to the room generally).—It's my notion that we are a set of fools.

MACKESY.-Nonsense. That business was knocked on the head last season. Why, young Mallard

ANTHONY.-Mallard was a candle-stick, paraded as such. Think a while. Recollect last season and the talk then. Mallard or no Mallard, did Gaddy ever talk to any other woman?

CURTISS. There's something in that. It was slightly noticeable now you come to mention it. But she's at Naini Tal and he's at Simla,

ANTHONY.-He had to go to Simla to look after a globe. trotter relative of his—a person with a title. Uncle or aunt. BLAYNE. And there he got engaged. No law prevents a

man growing tired of a woman.

ANTHONY.-Except that he mustn't do it till the woman is tired of him. And the Herriott woman was not that.

CURTISS. She may be now. Two months of Naini Tal work wonders.

DOONE. Curious thing how some women carry a Fate with them. There was a Mrs. Deegie in the Central Provinces whose men invariably fell away and got married. It became a regular proverb with us when I was down there. I remember three men desperately devoted to her, and they all, one after another, took wives.

CURTISS. That's odd. Now I should have thought that Mrs. Deegie's influence would have led them to take other men's wives. It ought to have made them afraid of the judgment of Providence.

ANTHONY.-Mrs. Herriott will make Gaddy afraid of something more than the judgment of Providence, I fancy.

BLAYNE. Supposing things are as you say, he'll be a fool to face her. He'll sit tight at Simla.

ANTHONY. 'Shouldn't be a bit surprised if he went off to Naini to explain. He's an unaccountable sort of man, and she's likely to be a more than unaccountable woman.

DOONE. What makes you take her character away so confidently?

ANTHONY.-Primum tempus. Gaddy was her first, and a woman doesn't allow her first man to drop away without exposulation. She justifies the first transfer of affection to herself by swearing that it is forever and ever. Consequently.

BLAYNE. Consequently, we are sitting here till past one o'clock, talking scandal like a set of Station cats. Anthony,

it's all your fault. We were perfectly respectable till you came in. Go to bed. I'm off. Good-night all.

CURTISS.-Past one! It's past two, by Jove, and here's the khit coming for the late charge. Just Heavens! One, two, three, four, five rupees to pay for the pleasure of saying that a poor little beast of a woman is no better than she should be. I'm ashamed of myself. Go to bed, you slanderous villains, and if I'm sent to Beora to-morrow, be prepared to hear I'm dead before paying my card-account!

CURTAIN.

THE TENTS OF KEDAR.

ONLY why should it be with pain at all,
Why must I 'twixt the leaves of coronal

Put any kiss of pardon on thy brow?
Why should the other women know so much,
And talk together:-Such the look and such

The smile he used to love with, then as now.
Any Wife to any Husband.

SCENE. A Naini Tal dinner for thirty-four. Plate, wines, crockery, and khitmatgars carefully calculated to scale of Rs. 6,000 per mensem, less Exchange. Table split lengthways by bank of flowers.

MRS. HERRIOT.-(After conversation has risen to proper pitch.) Ah! 'Didn't see you in the crush in the drawingroom. (Sotto voce.) Where have you been all this while, Pip?

CAPTAIN GADSBY.— (Turning from regularly ordained dinner partner and settling hock glasses.) Good-evening. (Sotto voce.) Not quite so loud another time. You've no notion how your voice carries. (Aside.) So much for shirking the written explanation. It'll have to be a verbal one now. Sweet prospect! How on earth am I to tell her that I am a respectable, engaged member of society and it's all over between us?

MRS. H.—I've a heavy score against you. Where were you at the Monday Pop? Where were you on Tuesday? Where were you at the Lamonts' tennis? I was looking everywhere.

CAPT. G.-For me! Oh, I was alive somewhere, I suppose.