"As usual--wrong, my dear Captain," he said. "My scheme has two parts. The first part is known to you all, though for the benefit of weak memories, I will repeat it. Ladies and gentlemen, in this Station we have the honor of being protected from the malice of the aborigine by two noble regiments. We count, moreover, at least thirty of the fair sex and forty miscellaneous persons, such as miserable civilians like myself, and children. Hitherto, we have been content to meet at odd times and odd places. When hospitality has run dry, we have resorted to a shed-like structure dignified with the name of club. Personally, I call it a disgrace, which should at once be rectified." "I have already contributed my mite!" protested a young subaltern from the British regiment. "I know; so has everybody. With strenuous efforts I have collected the sum of five hundred rupees. That won't do. We require at least four times that sum. Consequently, we must have a patron." "The second part of your programme concerns the patron, then?" Captain Webb inquired, with an aspect of considerable relief. "Not yourself, by any chance?" "Certainly not. If I had any noble inclinations of that sort I should have discovered them a long time ago. No, I content myself with taking the part of a fairy godmother." "I'm afraid I don't follow," Stafford put in. "What is the fairy godmother going to do for us? Produce a club-house, a patron, or a cucumber?" "A patron, and one, my dear fellow, whom I should have entirely overlooked had it not been for you." "For me!" "It was you who made the discovery that the present Rajah is not, as we thought, an imbecilic youth, but a man of many parts and splendidly adapted to our requirements." "I protest!" broke in Stafford, with unusual earnestness. "It was by pure chance that, in an audience with the Maharajah Scindia, the late regent of Marut, I got to hear that his whilom ward was both intelligent and cultured. I believe it was a slip on his part, and, seeing that Rajah Nehal Singh has shunned all English intercourse, I can not see that there is any likelihood of his adapting himself or his purse to your plans." "Oh, bosh!" exclaimed Travers impatiently. "You are too cautious, Stafford. Other rajahs interest themselves in social matters--why not this one? He is fabulously rich, I understand, and a little gentle handling should easily bring him around." There was a chorus of bravos, in which only one or two did not join. One was Colonel Carmichael, who stood a little apart, pulling his thin grey moustache in the nervous, anxious way peculiar to him, his kindly face overshadowed.