"Well, then, let me send Angel, with an ayah, to some good boarding-house where the lady will look after her. Surely, he would make no objection to that. She would be out of his sight for months."
"Perhaps not; but he has such odd ideas, and although he does not want her here, I doubt if he would allow her to go elsewhere. There," starting up, "I hear him now. He is coming."
"At any rate, you might sound him, Lena, and I'll call in for Angel at half-past five."
"Hullo, Gascoigne—you here?" and a stout, breathless little man, with prodigious moustache and a shining round face, came puffing up the steps. "I tell you," he panted, "this day is going to be a corker!—my reins were mad hot, and Graham says there are five cases of heat apoplexy in hospital. Lena, we must have the cuscus tatties up at once."
"They say this season is to be something quite extra," remarked Gascoigne, who had risen to his feet.
"Yes, yes," cried Colonel Wilkinson, "the usual bazaar talk. But," mopping his face, "if this is the beginning, where shall we all be in the end of May—eh, Lena?"
"In the cemetery, perhaps," she suggested gravely.
"Come, come, old woman—none of your ghastly jokes. Hullo, Beany boy; well, my Pinkums. Ayah," in a sharper key, "what do you mean by letting Master Beany wear his best shoes?"
"They are all he has got, sahib—others done fall to pieces," she answered sullenly.
"Fall to grandmother! Let me see them. And I say, the children are to have plenty of ice in their milk to-day. I've ordered in two seers extra. Has Master Baba had his tonic? Here—you must all clear out of the verandah—it's like a furnace. Away you go!" and, raising his arms as if driving a flock of geese, he hustled the whole family precipitately indoors, whilst Gascoigne snatched up his whip and fled.