Tally Ho, whose round blue eyes were fixed immovably on the face of the waiter, greatly to the discomfiture of that youthful but solemn personage, turned and twinkled friendlily at his new acquaintance, but his mind was too agitated by the question then troubling it for more than a passing attention to other matters. ‘For why isn’t he black?’ he said in a loudly audible but awestricken whisper to the General, pointing with his chin at the unfortunate. ‘My foughted all club waiters was black.’ ‘This is England, sir, not India; here they’re red, you know,’ said the General, blandly, with a chuckle. ‘It’s like lobsters, red in hot water; ain’t it, Morant?’ His eyes followed the vanishing form of the young waiter flying to hide the blushes spreading over his disconcerted countenance. ‘Oh!’ said Tally Ho, polite but unconvinced. ‘The point,’ said the General, after a pause, turning to his supporter. ‘The point is this--given small boy--gentleman--lost--name Geoffrey Standing Blount--new to England.’ ‘Dat’s my,’ said Tally Ho to himself softly in parenthesis. ‘Guest of mine,’ continued the General, ‘don’t want to pump him--point is, how to find his belongings, heh?’ He wound up abruptly. ‘Where was he met with?’ said the crony. He was head of a county constabulary, and great on detective detail. ‘The time and place?’ Mechanically he took out a pocket-book. ‘Ducks--St James’s Park--one thirty.’ Tally Ho stared from one to the other; were they talking of him? He inclined to think so. ‘My’s losted,’ he said to the crony; ‘my’s Daddy’s Number One mud-and-water soldier in de Deyra Dhun.’ At this precise moment his curry arrived, and no further information did he volunteer, for, as he had remarked, he was ‘velly empty.’ ‘I have it,’ said the crony, ‘waiter! fetch me an Army List. Number One mud-and-water soldier is pigeon-English for commanding engineer. Here you are,’ he continued, triumphantly, ‘R.E. Majors, Blount, F. Standing. India.’ ‘India,’ said the General, ‘hum. Large place--and this is England.’ ‘His bankers,’ said the crony, ‘probably Cox’s; waiter, fetch me a commissionaire, we’ll send him round and find out.’ ‘Bravo,’ said the General, ‘invaluable fellow, brilliant idea--that’s it, young man,’ he turned approvingly to Tally Ho, ‘wire in.’ ‘Exkullent dood chow-chow, nearly as dood as Foo Ching’s,’ responded Tally Ho. He was again oblivious of the fact that he was in process of being found, and was devoting himself in the intervals of luncheon to smiling sweetly at the waiter, whose feelings he was innocently conscious had been in some sort wounded. ‘Are ’oo feelin’ all light again?’ he said sympathetically, ‘’oo ’tant help not bein’ black, tan ’oo?’ The waiter cast one beseeching look around him, and fled precipitately, leaving a trail of blushes behind. ‘Poor mans,’ said Tally Ho, ‘perwaps de big fire has strokled him; he _is_ velly led, isn’t he, Genelal Sahib?’