application was impossible, but applications nearly always were
impossible. Nobody knew that better than the Secretary to the
Government of India in the Home Department.

I squared my shoulders and we got through the soup. It was
necessary to apologize for the fish. 'I suppose one must remember,'
I said, 'that it has to climb six thousand feet,' when suddenly he
burst out.

'Sir William Lamb tells me,' he said, and stopped to swallow some
wine, 'that there is something very good going in Calcutta and that
I should ask you to help me to get it. May I?'

So the miserable idea--the happy thought--had occurred to somebody
else.

'Is there?' I said, with interest and attention.

'It's something in the School of Art. A man named Fry has died.'

'Ah!' I said, 'a man named Fry. He, I think was Director of that
institution.' I looked at Armour in the considering, measuring way
with which we suggest to candidates for posts that their fitness to
fill them is not to be absolutely taken for granted. 'Fry was a man
of fifty-six,' I said.

'I am thirty.' He certainly did not look it, but years often fall
lightly upon a temperament.

'It's a vile climate.'