`Pledged the State's ticker, eh?' said M`Turk, with a nod to me.

`About that; but the embarrassin' part was that it was all so thunderin' convenient, so well reasoned, don't youk now. Came in as pat as if he'd had access to all sorts of information--which he couldn't, of course.'

`Pooh!' said Tertius, `I back Stalky against the Foreign Office any day.'

`He'd done pretty nearly everything he could think of, except strikin' coins in his own image and superscription, all under cover of buildin' this infernal road and bein' blocked by the snow. His report was simply amazin'. Von Lennaert tore his hair over it at first, and then he gasped, "Who the dooce is this unknown Warren Hastings? He must be slain. He must be slain officially! The Viceroy'll never stand it. It's unheard of. He must be slain by His Excellency in person. Order him up here and pitch in a stinger." Well, I sent him no end of an official stinger, and I pitched in an unofficial telegram at the same time.'

`You!' This with amazement from the Infant, for Abanazar resembled nothing so much as a fluffy Persian cat.

`Yes--me,' said Abanazar. `'Twasn't much, but after what you've said, Dicky, it was rather a coincidence, because I wired:

"Aladdin now has got his wife,
Your Emperor is appeased.
I think you'd better come to life:
We hope you've all been pleased."

Funny how that old song came up in my head. That was fairly non-committal and encouragin'. The only flaw was that his Emperor wasn't appeased by very long chalks. Stalky extricated himself from his mountain fastnesses and loafed up to Simla at his leisure, to be offered up on the horns of the altar.'

`But,' I began, `surely the Commander-in-Chief is the proper--'

`His Excellency had an idea that if he blew up one single junior captain--same as King used to blow us up--he was holdin' the reins of empire, and, of course, as long as he had that idea, Von Lennaert encouraged him. I'm not sure Von Lennaert didn't put that notion into his head.'

`They've changed the breed, then, since my time,' I said.

`P'r'aps. Stalky was sent up for his wiggin' like a bad little boy. I've reason to believe that His Excellency's hair stood on end. He walked into Stalky for one hour--Stalky at attention in the middle of the floor, and (so he vowed) Von Lennaert pretending to soothe down His Excellency's top-knot in dumb show in the background. Stalky didn't dare to look up, or he'd have laughed.'

`Now, wherefore was Stalky not broken publicly?' said the Infant, with a large and luminous leer.

`Ah, wherefore?' said Abanazar. `To give him a chance to retrieve his blasted career, and not to break his father's heart. Stalky hadn't a father, but that didn't matter. He behaved like a--like the Sanawar Orphan Asylum, and His Excellency graciously spared him. Then he came round to my office and sat opposite me for ten minutes, puffing out his nostrils. Then he said, "Pussy, if I thought that basket-hanger--"'

`Hah! He remembered that,' said M`Turk.

`"That two-anna basket-hanger governed India, I swear I'd become a naturalised Muscovite tomorrow. I'm a femme incomprise. This thing's broken my heart. It'll take six months' shootin'-leave in India to mend it. Do you think I can get it, Pussy?"'

`He got it in about three minutes and a half, and seventeen days later he was back in the arms of Rutton Singh--horrid disgraced--with orders to hand over his command, etc., to Cathcart MacMonnie.'