Opposite to them, Guy was screaming excitedly to Elfrida Penn, who seemed to be sucking in his words through her thick lips: “Of course, there’s nothing so beautiful and significant, from the point of view of composition, as a lot of people sitting at a narrow table—it’s the making of the Christian religion. Aubrey Beardsley ought to have done a Cena: the Apostles, in curly white wigs like these little tight clustering roses—Dorothy Perkins, or whatever they’re called—and black masks, sitting down one side of a narrow refectory table with plates piled up with round fruits, the wall behind them fluted and garlanded in stucco, St. John, his periwigged head on Jesus’ shoulder, leering up at him, and Judas, sitting a little apart, a white Pierrot, one finger pressed against his button mouth, his eyes round with horror and glee....”
“Yes, every year I was in India I read it through, from cover to cover,” boomed Colonel Dundas proudly. (Oh yes, of course, Dobbin and the History of the Punjab!) “It’s a wonderful style. He comes next to Shakespeare, in my estimation.” (Not Dobbin and the History of the Punjab, then!) “Yes, every year I read the whole of the French Revolution through from cover to cover—a very great book. And when, by mistake, John Stuart Mill burned the manuscript, what do you think Carlyle did?”
“I don’t know. What did he do?”
“He sat down and read through all the works of Fenimore Cooper—read ’em through from beginning to end,” and he stared at her in solemn triumph.
“Really?” she gasped, “I don’t quite understand. Fenimore Cooper—he wrote about Red Indians, didn’t he? Why did he read him?”
“Why? To distract his mind, of course. Extraordinary pluck!” and he glared at her angrily.
At this point Sir Roger, who had not been making much way with the Doña, leaned across the table, and said, “I say, Jimmy, Mrs. Lane and I have been talking about Gib.—did I ever tell you about the time I dined with your old Mess there? Owing to my being a connection of yours the Colonel asked me to choose a tune for the pipes;” then, turning to the Doña, he said in parenthesis, “I don’t know whether you’ve ever heard the bagpipes, but—don’t tell Colonel Dundas—we don’t think much of ’em this side of the border.” Then again to Colonel Dundas, “Well, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember the name of a tune, and then suddenly the Deil amang the Tailors came into my head, so out I came with it, as pleased as Punch. Well, I thought the Colonel looked a bit grim, and I saw ’em all looking at each other, but the order was given to the piper, and he got going, and, by gad, it was a tune—nearly took the roof off the place! I thought I should be deaf for life—turned out to be the loudest tune they’d got;” then, again to the extremely bored Doña, “but it’s a glorious place, old Gib. I remember in the eighties....”
Lady Cust, watching from the other end of the table, was much amused by the engouement her husband had developed, since arriving at Plasencia, for the society of Jimmy Dundas; it was clearly a case of “better the bore I know....”
“Yes, these were great days,” Colonel Dundas was saying; “we’re the oldest regiment of the line, you know—Pontius Pilate’s Bodyguard; that’s what we call ourselves—Pontius Pilate’s Bodyguard!” and he chuckled proudly.
And this from a pillar of the Scottish Episcopal Church!... Oh pale Galilean, hast thou conquered?