bags, new tin boxes, new gun cases, all lettered freshly--an enormous
kit doomed to diminution. They overflow the place, ebb towards their
respective rooms; return scrubbed and ruddy, correctly clad, correctly
unconscious of everybody else; sink into more wicker chairs. The quiet
brown and yellow men continue to puff at their cheroots, quite eclipsed.
After a time one of them picks up his battered old sun helmet and goes
out into the street. The eyes of the newcomers follow him. They fall
silent; and their eyes, under cover of pulled moustache, furtively
glance towards the lean man's companions. Then on that office falls a
great silence, broken only by the occasional rare remarks of the quiet
men with the cheroots. The youngsters are listening with all their ears,
though from their appearance no one would suspect that fact. Not a
syllable escapes them. These quiet men have been there; they have seen
with their own eyes; their lightest word is saturated with the mystery
and romance of the unknown. Their easy, matter-of-fact, everyday
knowledge is richly wonderful. It would seem natural for these
young-young men to question these old-young men of that which they
desire so ardently to know; but that isn't done, you know. So they sit
tight, and pretend they are not listening, and feast their ears on the
wonderful syllables--Ankobar, Kabul, Peshawur, Annam, Nyassaland,
Kerman, Serengetti, Tanganika, and many others. On these beautiful
syllables must their imaginations feed, for that which is told is as
nothing at all. Adventure there is none, romance there is none, mention
of high emprise there is none. Adventure, romance, high emprise have to
these men somehow lost their importance. Perhaps such things have been
to them too common--as well mention the morning egg. Perhaps they have
found that there is no genuine adventure, no real romance except over
the edge of the world where the rainbow stoops.

The bus rattles in and rattles out again. It takes the fresh-faced young