“No, m'lord, no immediate danger.”
“It's all right,” said Tarvrille to the table generally. “Go on! It's not a general conflagration, and the fire brigade won't be five minutes. Don't see that it's our affair. The stuff's insured. They say old Lady Paskershortly was dreadful. Like a harpy. The Dowager Empress had shown her some little things of hers. Pet things—hidden away. Susan went straight for them—used to take an umbrella for the silks. Born shoplifter.”
It was evident he didn't want his dinner spoilt, and we played up loyally.
“This is recorded history,” said Wilkins,—“practically. It makes one wonder about unrecorded history. In India, for example.”
But nobody touched that.
“Thompson,” said Tarvrille to the imperturbable butler, and indicating the table generally, “champagne. Champagne. Keep it going.”
“M'lord,” and Thompson marshalled his assistants.
Some man I didn't know began to remember things about Mandalay. “It's queer,” he said, “how people break out at times;” and told his story of an army doctor, brave, public-spirited, and, as it happened, deeply religious, who was caught one evening by the excitement of plundering—and stole and hid, twisted the wrist of a boy until it broke, and was afterwards overcome by wild remorse.
I watched Evesham listening intently. “Strange,” he said, “very strange. We are such stuff as thieves are made of. And in China, too, they murdered people—for the sake of murdering. Apart, so to speak, from mercenary considerations. I'm afraid there's no doubt of it in certain cases. No doubt at all. Young soldiers fresh from German high schools and English homes!”
“Did OUR people?” asked some patriot.