"You might go on for ever that way. Now, Tishy dear, do be kind and tell me what you heard and who said it. _I_ should tell _you_. You _know_ I should." This appeal produces concession. "It was old Major Roper told mamma--with blue pockets under his eyes and red all over, creeks and wheezes when he speaks--do you know him?" "No, I don't, and I don't want to. At least, I've just seen him at a distance. I could see he was purple. _Our_ Major--Colonel Lund, you know--says he's a horrible old gossip, and you can't rely on a word he says. But what _did_ he say?" "Well, of course, I oughtn't to tell you this, because I promised not. What he _said_ was that your mother went out to be married to your father in India, and the year after he got a divorce because he was jealous of some man your mother had met on the way out." "How old was I?" "Gracious me, child! how should _I_ know. He only said you were a baby in arms. Of course, you must have been, if you think of it." Laetitia here feels that possible calculations may be embarrassing, and tries to avert them. "Do let's get on to the third movement. We shall spend all the afternoon talking." "Very well, Tishy, fire away! Oh, no; it's me." And the third movement is got under way, till we reach a _pizzicato_ passage which Sally begins playing with the bow by mistake. "That's _pits_!" says the first violin, and we have to begin again at the top of the page, and the Professor in his library wonders why on earth those girls can't play straight on. The Ancient Phoenicians are fidgeted by the jerks in the music. But it comes to an end in time, and then Sally begins again: "I _know_ that story's all nonsense now, Tishy." "Why?" "Because mother told me once that my father never saw me, so come now! Because the new-bornest baby that ever was couldn't be too small for its father to see." Sally pauses reflectively, then adds: "Unless he was blind. And mother would have said if he'd been blind." "He couldn't have been blind, because----" "Now, Tishy, you see! You're keeping back lots of things that old wheezy squeaker said. And you _ought_ to tell me--you know you ought. Why couldn't he?" "You're in such a hurry, dear. I was going to tell you. Major Roper said he never saw him but once, and it was out shooting tigers, and he was the best shot for a civilian he'd ever seen. There was a tiger was just going to lay hold of a man and carry him off when your father shot him from two hundred yards off----" "The man or the tiger? I'm on the tiger's side. I always am." "The tiger, stupid! You wouldn't want your own father to aim at a tiger and hit a man?" Sally reflects. "I don't think I should. But, I say, Tishy, do you mean to say that Major Roper meant to say that he was out shooting with my father and didn't know what his name was?" "Oh, no. He said his name, of course. It was Palliser ... that was right, wasn't it?" "Oh dear, no; it was Graythorpe. Palliser indeed!"