“I don’t want any tiffin,” pronounced Hazel. “I only want to get at those nectarines. They just are good. Bother camp! I like it much better here.”
The large, lofty, cool room in which they were was hung around with trophies of the chase, all spoils of their owner’s unerring rifle. One end of the room was hung with the skin of an immense tiger, draped, as it were, from ceiling to floor, the other with that of a somewhat smaller one, which had clawed a native out of a tree and killed him before Upward could get in a shot. Hard by was a finely marked panther-skin whose erewhile wearer had badly mauled Upward himself! Panther and jungle cat and cheetul and others were all represented, and with horns of the blackbuck and sambur, tastefully disposed, produced an effect that was picturesque and unique. It served another purpose, too, as Upward used to say in his dry way. It gave people something to talk about when they came to tiffin and dinner. It was sure to set them comparing notes, or swearing they had seen or shot much bigger ones, and so forth. At any rate, it kept them going.
The bungalow was surrounded on three sides by a garden of which Upward was justly proud, for it was all of his own making. In front a trim lawn, bright with flower beds, and beyond this a tennis court, of which his neighbours did him the favour to make constant use. They likewise did him the favour to plant their bicycles, dogs, and other impedimenta, about his flower beds, or against the great crimson and purple convolvulus blossoms entwining his summer-house, whereat he fumed inwardly, but suffered in silence, from a misplaced good nature; and, after all, it was a little way they had in Shâlalai. Peaches and nectarines and plums attained a high degree of excellence in their own department, likewise every kind of green vegetable—and the verandah was green and cool with all sorts of ferns.
“I wonder none of the garrison have been up, Miss Cheriton,” he went on. “They can’t have got wind that you’re back. What’s that? Some of them already?” For Tinkles, suddenly leaping from her chair, darted out into the hall, barking shrilly and making a prodigious fuss. At the same time steps were heard on the verandah.
“That’s Fleming,” said Upward, recognising the voice—then going out into the hall. “Come in here, old chap. Well, what’s the news?”
“There is some news, but—Hallo! Excuse me, Mrs Upward. Didn’t know you were at tiffin.”
“It’s all right. We’re just done. Get into that chair and have a ‘peg’—and then we can hear the kubbur.”
“Well, it’s not very definite as yet,” replied Fleming, subsiding into the chair indicated. “Thanks, Upward—only a small one, I’ve just had one at the club. They say—By the bye, didn’t you come in from Mehriâb yesterday?”
“Yes, of course. But why?”
“Was it all right?”