sort; I forget what they were, but it wasn't for want of
reminding. We had them cold with every meal almost, and he
was continually giving us details of what they measured from
tip to tip, as though he thought we were going to make them
warm under-things for the winter. I used to listen to him
with a rapt attention that I thought rather suited me, and
then one day I quite modestly gave the dimensions of an okapi
I had shot in the Lincolnshire fens. The Major turned a
beautiful Tyrian scarlet (I remember thinking at the time
that I should like my bathroom hung in that colour), and I
think that at that moment he almost found it in his heart to
dislike me. Mrs. Babwold put on a first-aid-to-the-injured
expression, and asked him why he didn't publish a book of his
sporting reminiscences; it would be SO interesting. She
didn't remember till afterwards that he had given her two fat
volumes on the subject, with his portrait and autograph as a
frontispiece and an appendix on the habits of the Arctic
mussel.

It was in the evening that we cast aside the cares and
distractions of the day and really lived. Cards were thought
to be too frivolous and empty a way of passing the time, so
most of them played what they called a book game. You went
out into the hall--to get an inspiration, I suppose--then you
came in again with a muffler tied round your neck and looked
silly, and the others were supposed to guess that you were
"Wee MacGreegor." I held out against the inanity as long as
I decently could, but at last, in a lapse of good-nature, I
consented to masquerade as a book, only I warned them that it
would take some time to carry out. They waited for the best