"I suppose if I don't give you one now you'll have two later?"

He nodded. "I must. One now would put me just to rights and I'd eat
at noon. Times when I'm savage with myself, and wait, I have to have
two or three before I can stomach lunch."

She offered him a basket chair and beckoned Chamu.

"Brandy and soda for the sahib."

"Thank you, ma'am!" said the soldier piously.

"Where's your dog, Tom?"

"Behaving himself, I hope, ma'am, out there in the sun by the gate."

"Call him. He shall have a bone on the veranda. I want him to feel as
friendly here as you do."

Tom whistled shrilly and an ash-hued creature, part Great Dane and
certainly part Rampore, came up the path like a catapulted phantom,
making hardly any sound. He stopped at the foot of the steps and
gazed inquiringly at his master's face.

"You may come up."

He was an extraordinary animal, enormous, big-jowled, scarred, ungainly
and apparently aware of it. He paused again on the top step.