All eyes were turned promptly upon Major Joseph Douglas. He groped for his fallen eyeglass, and fixed it very deliberately in his eye, then he signalled to one of the mess waiters and just as deliberately helped himself to another share of curried chicken.
"I—Oh—Why, Charlie!" he began. "Have you—er—that is, did you try this curried chicken? I declare it to be the best that I've tasted for a year or so. What's happened? Have you fellows been indulging in a new cook since I last went away, or——Do try some, Charlie, there's a good fellow."
Those who did not know the officers of the —— Sikhs, and didn't know either Major Charles Evans or Major Joseph Douglas, might have expected at this moment quite an explosion on the part of Major Evans. The jovial fellow had had the audacity to show curiosity. Taking advantage of his age and of his seniority, he had ventured at the mess table to cross-examine a "political", and now, just as he was listening with bated breath for the answer, he received—merely a "put-off", and heard his brother officer asking him, in that suave, quiet voice he knew so well, whether he would not indulge in a helping of curried chicken. Yet those unacquainted with the officers of the —— Sikhs would have found themselves signally in error when expecting an explosion. Those two bright eyes, of which Major Evans boasted, twinkled as he listened to his brother officer. Then the corners of his mouth dimpled, and a moment later he was roaring with laughter.
"Beaten, hopelessly beaten!" he cried jovially; "and I might have expected it. For an oyster, my dear boy, you really are exceptional. Now any other fellow, any other "political", that is to say, would have indulged in some sort of hint to relieve our curiosity, would have pitched some sort of yarn, even though it were not an exactly true one. But you—well, you're hopeless, incorrigible, and most utterly disappointing. Boy! Bring me some iced water, I must cool myself down after such a rebuff, and I'll——Hallo! Hallo! Here's a message."
A native soldier stood saluting at the door of the ante-room, and presented an official envelope to the mess butler.
"The Major Sahib," he said.
"The Major Douglas Sahib," the mess butler corrected him severely. "The Major Douglas Sahib. Quick! Important!"
He placed the envelope on a silver salver, and, holding it there with the tip of his thumb, came swiftly and silently round to the seat occupied by that officer.
"From the Colonel, Sahib," he said as he leant over Joe Douglas's shoulder.
Very slowly and deliberately, as if unconscious of the fact that every eye in the mess was surreptitiously fixed upon him, Joe Douglas tore open the envelope and read the contents of the missive.