There he stays the whole blessed day, cursin' and swearin' somethin' awful till just one minute past twelve o'clock next night. Then he descends in state with his twenty-one guns, fifty politicals bowin' down before him and apologisin'. Old fool, we're too kind to 'em by half.'
I felt a bit breathless as he came to a pause, as if I had just done the hundred yards on a motor. He had been going the pace like clockwork that wasn't quite in order and had got jerky.
'Do you know many other stories like that?' I asked him.
He looked round at me seriously.
'Let's see, do I?' he said thoughtfully, fixing his eye-glass and looking at me as if considering whether I was worth another. He seemed to make up his mind that I was.
'By jove, yes,' he said, refreshing himself before starting off again with a drink of champagne, 'of course I do. Ever heard of the Khan of Kotchibad? What, no again? Bless my soul, thought everybody had heard of the Khan of Kotchibad. Awful old buster. Always grousin' about somethin'. Files of correspondence in the F.O. all about nothin'. Never happy without a grievance. Well, he hears about Delhi. Pretends he's in an awful funk. Sets up for bein' orthodox, and frightened to death he'll be asked to do somethin' up here that no good Mussulman should. Hears about arrangements for the Durbar. Viceroy and Duke to stand on a dais—island sort of place—and all the chiefs to walk round it as they come up to make their salaams.
