“It’s true, though. The second is all very well, but I call it beastly that you missed the first by two votes. I am neither a painter, nor a sculptor, nor an architect, so of course I know nothing about music, but I’ll be hanged if that God of the Christians of yours didn’t set my heart gurgling and rumbling to such a tune that if I had met you that minute I should have—have—stood you a drink!”
“Thanks awfully, Pingard. I admire your taste. But, I say—you have been on the Coromandel coast?”
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“To Java?”
“Yes, but——”
“Sumatra?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“You are a friend of Levaillant?”