one of my servants, the faithful Kiramat Ali, to order the horses.
Meantime the conversation turned on the expedition to Kabul to avenge
the death of Cavagnari. I found Isaacs held the same view that I did in
regard to the whole business. He thought the sending of four Englishmen,
with a handful of native soldiers of the guide regiment to protect them,
a piece of unparalleled folly, on a par with the whole English policy in
regard to Afghanistan.

"You English--pardon me, I forgot you did not belong to them--the
English, then, have performed most of their great acts of valour as a
direct consequence of having wantonly exposed themselves in situations
where no sane man would have placed himself. Look at Balaclava; think of
the things they did in the mutiny, and in the first Afghan war; look at
the mutiny itself, the result of a hair-brained idea that a country like
India could be held for ever with no better defences than the
trustworthiness of native officers, and the gratitude of the people for
the 'kindly British rule.' Poor Cavagnari! when he was here last summer,
before leaving on his mission, he said several times he should never
came back. And yet no better man could have been chosen, whether for
politics or fighting; if only they had had the sense to protect him."

Having delivered himself of this eulogy, my friend dropped his exhausted
cigarette, lit another, and appeared again absorbed in the triangulation
of his matrimonial problem. I imagined him weighing the question whether
he should part with Zobeida and Zuleika and keep Anima, or send Zuleika
and Amina about their business, and keep Zobeida to be a light in his
household. At last Kiramat Ali, on the watch in the verandah, announced
the saices with the horses, and we descended.

I had expected that a man of Isaacs' tastes and habits would not be