"I sent you to Ochori to prevent a massacre, you catch a chief in the act of ambushing an enemy and instead of chucking him straight into the Village of Iron you fine him ten dollars." "Yes, sir," said Bones. There was a painful pause. "Well, you're an ass!" said Hamilton, who could think of nothing better to say. "Yes, sir," said Bones; "I think you're repeating yourself, sir. I seem to have heard a similar observation before." "You've made Bosambo and the whole of the Ochori as sick as monkeys, and you've made me look a fool." "Hardly my responsibility, sir," said Bones, gently. "I hardly know what to do with you," said Hamilton, drawing his pipe from his pocket and slowly charging it. "Naturally, Bones, I can never let you loose again on the country." He lit his pipe and puffed thoughtfully. "And of course----" "Pardon me, sir," said Bones, still uncomfortably erect, "this is intended to be a sort of official inquiry an' all that sort of thing, isn't it?" "It is," said Hamilton. "Well, sir," said Bones, "may I ask you not to smoke? When a chap's honour an' reputation an' all that sort of thing is being weighed in the balance, sir, believe me, smokin' isn't decent--it isn't really, sir." Hamilton looked round for something to throw at his critic and found a tolerably heavy book, but Bones dodged and fielded it dexterously. "And if you must chuck things at me, sir," he added, as he examined the title on the back of the missile, "will you avoid as far as possible usin' the sacred volumes of the Army List? It hurts me to tell you this, sir, but I've been well brought up." "What's the time?" asked Hamilton, and his second-in-command examined his watch. "Ten to tiffin," he said. "Good Lord, we've been gassin' an hour. Any news from Sanders?" "He's in town--that's all I know--but don't change the serious subject, Bones. Everybody is awfully disgusted with you--Sanders would have at least brought him to trial." "I couldn't do it, sir," said Bones, firmly. "Poor old bird! He looked such an ass, an' moreover reminded me so powerfully of an aunt of mine that I simply couldn't do it." No doubt but that Lieut. Francis Augustus Tibbetts of the Houssas, with his sun-burnt nose, his large saucer eyes, and his air of solemn innocence, had shaken the faith of the impressionable folk. This much Hamilton was to learn: for Tibbetts had been sent with a party of Houssas to squash effectively an incipient rebellion in the Akasava, and having caught N'gori in the very act of most treacherously and most damnably preparing an ambush for a virtuous Bosambo, Chief of the Ochori, had done no more than fine him ten dollars. And this was in a land where even the Spanish dollar had never been seen save by Bosambo, who was reported to have more than his share of silver in a deep hole beneath the floor of his hut.