"Nay, Ted, don't ask me. I don't get shoals of letters in feminine handwriting." Ted turned red, laughed, and changed the subject. "This reads very funnily now. They write to say how glad they are that Delhi has fallen, and that Jim and I escaped without harm, and they suppose that by now the fighting will all be over." He opened the second envelope, and Alec winked at Claude, who raised his eyebrows enquiringly. "Surely it ain't?" said he, rising quickly to the joke; and Ted looked up in feigned bewilderment. "Of course it is," Alec answered. "Don't he look rapturous?" "And so young!" murmured Claude. "Yes; he cut me out too. She preferred the colour of his hair, and fancied that she detected more signs of a moustache." Alec dodged, as Ted most irreverently threw a bishop at his head, and resumed: "A nice little girl too, daughter of one of our officers. Does she send any message for me, Ted?" Our hero was blushing violently. He sprang to his feet suddenly, caught his chum by the collar, and rolled both him and his seat over the floor of the tent, smashing the stool and damaging Claude's bed. Then, feeling better, he resumed his seat, and Alec picked himself up, laughing. "It's a bad case, Claude," said he. "What does she say, Ted?" "Well, if you want to know, she asks if I still chum with that ass Paterson, or whether he's been knocked on the head by a praiseworthy pandy, and a good job too!" "That's fiction," commented Alec solemnly. "Go ahead." "She says that the weather is sometimes fine, though not so hot as it will be in June." "More fiction. Seems suspicious, Claude, that he should have to extemporize." Claude nodded acquiescence. "He's in a bad way, that's plain," said he. And Ted went on unheeding: "And that Colonel Woodburn is hardly inconvenienced by his wound; that she herself is very well, and has seen Jim several times lately; and that everything is quiet along the frontier; and that Jim is continually wishing that the Guides could have been spared for Lucknow; and that she's heard of what you did at Agra." Here was Alec's turn to blush. "Never mind all that," he interrupted hastily. "What we want to know is what she says about you." But Ted winked, and, pocketing the letter, once more assumed an aggressive demeanour. "Pax!" said Alec, retreating. "I'm not going to fight a chap who's in the habit of exploding gunpowder beneath his opponents. By the way, have you seen our allies?" "Not yet. Shall we pay them a visit? Come along."