What the devil.... If the _dak's_[7] missed again, by thunder!...
paid to converse with itinerant females ... seven columns ... infernal
idiocy."
[Footnote 7: Country post.]
Hilda descended in safety and at leisure, reflecting with some amusement
as she made her way down that Mr. Sinclair was doubtless waiting until
his lady visitor was well out of earshot to make it warm for the editor.
CHAPTER XII.
I find myself wondering whether Calcutta would have found anything very
exquisitely amusing in the satisfactions which exchanged themselves
between Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope's leading lady and the Reverend Stephen
Arnold, had if been aware of them, and I conclude reluctantly that it
would not. Reluctantly because such imperviousness argues a lack of
perception, of _flair_, in directions which any continental centre would
recognise as vastly tickling, regrettable in a capital of such vaunted
sophistication as that which sits beside the Hooghly. It may as well be
shortly admitted, however, that to stir Calcutta's sense of comedy you
must, for example, attempt to corner, by shortsightedness or faulty
technical equipment, a civet cat in a jackal hunt, or, coming out from
England to assume official duties, you must take a larger view of your
dignities than the clubs are accustomed to admit.
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