that nothing succeeds like success. Not only did all the flaneurs
of the Chandnee Chouk seize upon him, but, from passing carriages,
bright, roguish eyes merrily challenged him as the hot-hearted
English Mem-Sahibs whirled by.

Rumor had magnified the importance of Major Alan Hawke's secret
service appointment, and the wanderer was astounded when the highest
official of the Delhi College gravely saluted him.

"By Gad! I believe that I am really becoming respectable!" laughed
the delighted major. His uncertain past seemed to be fast fading
away in the glow of the skillfully hinted official promotion. "I
wonder now if old Ram Lal has a hold on my canny friend, Hugh Fraser
Johnstone--Sir Hugh to be! Perhaps they are like all the rest of
us--rascals of the same grade, but only in different ways. The old
jewel matters! I must look to this and watch Ram Lal!" The returned
Anglo-Indian carelessly nodded to the group of men gathered in the
club's lounging-room as he entered. Designedly, he loudly demanded
to know if his traps had arrived. "Left all my odds and ends in
store," he murmured to a friend, as he called for a brandy pawnee.
"Beastly bore! Must wait orders here for some time!"

Skilled at tossing the ball of conversation to and fro, Major Alan
Hawke, while at luncheon, artfully planted seeds here and there,
to be neatly dished up later for that incipient baronet, Hugh
Johnstone. And yet a graceful shade of dignified reserve lent
color to his rumored advancement, and the schemer leaned over the
writing table with quite a foreign-office air as he indited his
diplomatic note of arrival to his destined prey.