the impassive steward presenting two great dishes. The clatter of
some late convive seating himself also caused him to turn his head.

"Hello, Anstruther! You are a long way from staff headquarters
here!" quietly said Hawke, as the new arrival gazed at him in a
mute surprise.

Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther put up his monocle and
duly answered: "I thought that you were still in Calcutta, Hawke."
There was a faint noli me tangere air in the young staff officer's
manner, and yet mere propinquity drew them together in a few
minutes. With the insouciance of men bred in club and at mess,
the two soldiers soon drifted into an easy chat, meeting on safe
grounds. They calmly ignored the surrounding civilians, regardless
of the attractions of two falcon-eyed Chicago beauties, loud of
voice and brilliantly overdressed, who were guiding "Popper" and
"Mommer" over the continent. These resplendent daughters of Columbia
already boasted a train consisting of a French count (of a very
old and shadowy regime), a singularly second-hand looking Italian
marquis, a wooden-soldier figured German baron, and a sad-eyed,
distant-looking Russian prince, whose bold Tartar glances rested
hungrily upon both Miss "Phenie" and Miss "Genie" Forbes.

The Anglo-Indians, however, calmly pursued their dinner and gossip
regardless of the fact that Miss "Phenie" had violently nudged
Miss "Genie," and whispered in a stage aside: "Say, Genie, look at
those two English fellows! They are something like--I bet you that
they are two Lords!" The approval of the gilded Western maidens,
whose father systematically assassinated a thousand porkers per
diem, was lost upon the chance-met acquaintances. "I must get back