scenery? An Indian landscape would have rather a bare, unfinished look without a tiger or two in the middle distance.’

‘I’ve got a hen-tiger somewhere in the poem,’ said Clovis, hunting through his notes. ‘Here she is:

Bertie van Tahn rose hurriedly from his recumbent position and made for the glass door leading into the next compartment.

‘I think your idea of home life in the jungle is perfectly horrid,’ he said. ‘The cobra was sinister enough, but the improvised rattle in the tiger-nursery is the limit. If you’re going to make me turn hot and cold all over I may as well go into the steam room at once.’

‘Just listen to this line,’ said Clovis; ‘it would make the reputation of any ordinary poet:

‘Most of your readers will think “punkah” is a kind of iced drink or half-time at polo,’ said Bertie, and disappeared into the steam.

The Smoky Chimney duly published the ‘Recessional,’ but it proved to be its swan song, for the paper never attained to another issue.

Loona Bimberton gave up her intention of attending the Durbar and went into a nursing-home on the Sussex Downs. Nervous breakdown after a particularly strenuous season was the usually accepted explanation, but there are three or four people who know that she never really recovered from the dawn breaking over the Brahma-putra river.