“I’m a man of one book. I read the Indian Army List; that is quite enough literature for me. Some fellow’s names alone call up a whole novel.” “You feel better to-day, I hope?” “Yes, I am unusually well. You are not married, are you?” he asked abruptly. “No, not yet”--rather startled at the sudden change of topic. “But I hope to marry before long.” “Hope, hope; that’s what we all say. Don’t let it go beyond that. Hope told a flattering tale. I don’t believe in hope.” “Why not?” inquired his companion rather anxiously. “You see this terrace,” he exclaimed, as if he had not heard; “I walk up and down it exactly a hundred times a day; I take a hundred beans in my pocket, and put one of them on that bench every time I come to it. I find it most interesting; only sometimes birds steal my beans, and that puts me out, and I lose count, and I have to begin the whole hundred over again, and I get so tired. But I must do it, or they would be angry.” “Who would be angry, sir?” “I forget, just this minute--the beans or the birds.” “You seem to have wonderfully fine fruit-trees here,” said Mark, after an expressively long silence. “Yes, the mallees work well, the rascals, because I give them all the vegetables and flowers and fruit, as well as their wages. They make a good thing out of it; the peaches and pears and plums from the Yellow House are celebrated.” Mark now remembered having heard of their fame in far Shirani. “Let us sit down here and talk,” continued Major Jervis. “For once I will forego my walk; it is not every day that I have my son to listen to me. Recent events seem blurred and dim, but I remember years back distinctly. Mark, my boy, shall I tell you something about myself, and how I have spent my life? Would you care to know?” “I would, of course.”