“Yes, every year I was in India I read it through, from _cover to cover_,” boomed Colonel Dundas proudly. (Oh yes, of course, Dobbin and the _History of the Punjab_!) “It’s a wonderful style. He comes next to Shakespeare, in my estimation.” (Not Dobbin and the _History of the Punjab_, then!) “Yes, every year I read the whole of the _French Revolution_ through from cover to cover—a very great book. And when, by mistake, John Stuart Mill burned the manuscript, what do you think Carlyle did?”
“He sat down and read through all the works of Fenimore Cooper—read ’em through from _beginning to end_,” and he stared at her in solemn triumph.
“Really?” she gasped, “I don’t quite understand. Fenimore Cooper—he wrote about Red Indians, didn’t he? Why did he read _him_?”
“_Why?_ To distract his mind, of course. Extraordinary pluck!” and he glared at her angrily.
At this point Sir Roger, who had not been making much way with the Doña, leaned across the table, and said, “I say, Jimmy, Mrs. Lane and I have been talking about Gib.—did I ever tell you about the time I dined with your old Mess there? Owing to my being a connection of yours the Colonel asked me to choose a tune for the pipes;” then, turning to the Doña, he said in parenthesis, “I don’t know whether you’ve ever heard the bagpipes, but—don’t tell Colonel Dundas—we don’t think much of ’em this side of the border.” Then again to Colonel Dundas, “Well, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember the name of a tune, and then suddenly the _Deil amang the Tailors_ came into my head, so out I came with it, as pleased as Punch. Well, I thought the Colonel looked a bit grim, and I saw ’em all looking at each other, but the order was given to the piper, and he got going, and, by gad, it _was_ a tune—nearly took the roof off the place! I thought I should be deaf for life—turned out to be the loudest tune they’d got;” then, again to the extremely bored Doña, “but it’s a glorious place, old Gib. I remember in the eighties....”
Lady Cust, watching from the other end of the table, was much amused by the _engouement_ her husband had developed, since arriving at Plasencia, for the society of Jimmy Dundas; it was clearly a case of “better the bore I know....”