“That’s what I should like to know!” Ted retorted. He then looked up at the ceiling, placed his hands in his pockets, and calmly observed: “You’ve no chance there, Jim, she’s hooked already.”
“What d’you say?” exclaimed the excited captain. “It’s not true. What d’you mean?” he repeated. “You don’t say that Miss Woodburn is engaged?”
“Oh, never mind Miss Woodburn!” drawled Ted in his most exasperating manner. “What’s she got to do with it? The question is whether we ride to Khasmi or not.”
“Tell me what you mean, you little beggar,” Jim went on, half angry, yet laughing in spite of himself.
Ted crossed his legs, and, still gazing at the ceiling, drawled: “Why, be calm, Russell Major. You just asked what she had to do with the matter of our ride to Khasmi. Why this sudden interest?”
Captain Russell kept his temper and laughed.
“Don’t try to be too smart, young ’un,” he advised. “But it isn’t true that she’s engaged to be married, is it?”
“Well—p’r’aps not exactly that she’s engaged,” Ted admitted.
There was a tone of pompous condescension in his voice as he went on: “But I hear that Sir Arthur Fletcher, the commissioner here, you know, is gone on her, and, of course, as he’s a splendid catch, the ‘old man’ will want her to marry him, and I don’t suppose she’ll need much pressing, for he’s a jolly decent fellow. And besides him, half of our fellows are in love with her, though I don’t know why. I don’t see much in her myself; she seems a very ordinary sort of girl to me. And she’s such a little thing, you know!”
“You conceited young booby!” Jim laughed. “I shall have to take the bounce out of you, young man.”