Our hero was blushing violently. He sprang to his feet suddenly, caught his chum by the collar, and rolled both him and his seat over the floor of the tent, smashing the stool and damaging Claude’s bed. Then, feeling better, he resumed his seat, and Alec picked himself up, laughing.
“It’s a bad case, Claude,” said he. “What does she say, Ted?”
“Well, if you want to know, she asks if I still chum with that ass Paterson, or whether he’s been knocked on the head by a praiseworthy pandy, and a good job too!”
“That’s fiction,” commented Alec solemnly. “Go ahead.”
“She says that the weather is sometimes fine, though not so hot as it will be in June.”
“More fiction. Seems suspicious, Claude, that he should have to extemporize.”
Claude nodded acquiescence.
“He’s in a bad way, that’s plain,” said he. And Ted went on unheeding: “And that Colonel Woodburn is hardly inconvenienced by his wound; that she herself is very well, and has seen Jim several times lately; and that everything is quiet along the frontier; and that Jim is continually wishing that the Guides could have been spared for Lucknow; and that she’s heard of what you did at Agra.”
Here was Alec’s turn to blush.
“Never mind all that,” he interrupted hastily. “What we want to know is what she says about you.”