“What’s he up to now?” Totleigh queried with friendly skepticism. “More Anglo-Italian agreement?”

“He’ll never bring it off,” said George, turning a page. “Never in this world. Anyway, Spain is too far gone.”

The exact gist of this was not clear to them, so they left it.

“It’s not Spain, but Czechoslovakia, that will stretch him,” Calthorpe admitted. “I don’t like it. It’s everybody’s fault, including Czechoslovakia’s. I don’t like it.”

“It’ll get worse and worse,” said George, without looking up from Punch, “and finally somebody over there will go bang! and then we’ll all be for it.”

Calthorpe and Totleigh exchanged entirely expressionless glances, and there was silence while each returned to his paper. After several minutes of this Totleigh gave a despairing grunt and flung out the News at them, open.

“Look at that!” he commanded them. “India’s a mess. It’s always been a mess, and I’m afraid it always will be!”

Calthorpe glanced briefly at the paper. Waziristan again.

“Is Hilary still out there?” he inquired of George.

“Oh, yes, so far as anybody knows,” said Hilary’s brother, grinding his teeth on a yawn. “His leave is overdue, but Hilary never writes.”

“What’s he doing out there now?”

“Sh!” said George. “Not so loud. Hilary moves in a cloud these days. One of those hush-hush expeditions up north.”

“Oh, I say, have they given him another one of those nasty Border jobs?” said Calthorpe in genuine concern.

“Don’t feel sorry for him, he loves it,” objected Hilary’s brother. “Keep the flag flyin’—that sort of thing! Hilary’s exactly like father, and father might have been something that Kipling wrote.”

“I liked your father, George,” Calthorpe reminded him gently.

“So did I,” George assured him unemotionally. “But it was right that he shouldn’t survive the War. He’d be an uncomfortable anachronism. Hilary is.”

“I’ve got an idea, George,” said Totleigh, moving round to the hearthrug and taking a stance there while he filled his pipe, “I’ve got an idea, George, that what this world needs is more anachronisms!”

“Perhaps you’re right,” George conceded sweetly. “Perhaps Hilary’s right too. Mother’s getting a bit anxious about him, but I tell her we’ve had scares before.”

“Alice is worrying, I think,” said her father. “I must say, Hilary might let her hear a little oftener.”