And the man he is talking to has just done a history
of the Semitic nations. He took me down to dinner last
night, and we talked in the most intelligent manner about
the various ways of preparing crabs. He liked them in
five styles; I wouldn't subscribe to more than three.
That little man with the orchid that daddy has just seized
is the author of the last of the 'Rulers of India'
series--Sir Somebody Something, K.C.S.I. My unconscionable
humbug of a parent probably wants to get something
approaching a fact out of him. Daddy's writing a thing
for one of the reviews on the elective principle for
India this week. He says he's the only writer on Indian
subjects who isn't disqualified by ever having been there,
and is consequently quite free of prejudice."
"Ah!" said Elfrida, "how _banal!_ I thought you said
there would be something real here--somebody in whose
garment's hem there would be virtue."
"And I suggest the dress-coat of the historian of the
Semitic nations!" Janet laughed. "Well, if nearly all
our poets are dead and our novelists in the colonies, I
can't help it, can I! Here is Mr. Kendal, at all events."
Kendal came up, with his perfect manners, and immediately
it seemed to Elfrida that their little group became
distinct from the rest, more important, more worthy of
observation.
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