| Lhassa. | (From a photograph) By permission from 'Black and White' | [Frontispiece] |
TO LHASSA AT LAST
CHAPTER I
THE WRITING ON THE WALL
'Ain't this ripping?' said I to my wife.
'Yes, delightful,' she said.
It really was rather nice. It had been quite hot in the plains, and was pleasantly cool up here. My wife and family had preceded me and had been settled for some weeks in the house which we had taken in the hills for the hot weather, and now I had just arrived on two months' leave. We were sitting over the fire in the drawing-room after dinner, a cosy little room made homelike by a careful selection of draperies and ornaments from the larger drawing-room in the plains.
'Just ripping,' I repeated with sad lack of originality. The ride up the hill from the plains had been fatiguing. The fire was soporific. There was whiskey and soda at my elbow and a cheroot in my mouth (I'm a privileged husband and smoke in the drawing-room).