A dog-cart drove up, and a man entered, mopping his head.  He was editor of the one daily paper at the capital of a province of twenty-five million natives and a few hundred white men, and as his staff was limited to himself and one assistant, his office hours ran variously from ten to twenty a day.

‘Hi, Raines; you’re supposed to know everything,’ said Martyn, stopping him.  ‘How’s this Madras “scarcity” going to turn out?’

’No one knows as yet.  There’s a message as long as your arm coming in on the telephone.  I’ve left my cub to fill it out.  Madras has owned she can’t manage it alone, and Jimmy seems to have a free hand in getting all the men he needs.  Arbuthnot’s warned to hold himself in readiness.’

‘"Badger” Arbuthnot?’

’The Peshawur chap.  Yes, and the Pi wires that Ellis and Clay have been moved from the North-West already, and they’ve taken half a dozen Bombay men, too.  It’s pukka famine, by the looks of it.’

’They’re nearer the scene of action than we are; but if it comes to indenting on the Punjab this early, there’s more in this than meets the eye,’ said Martyn.

‘Here to-day and gone to-morrow.  Didn’t come to stay for ever,’ said Scott, dropping one of Marryat’s novels, and rising to his feet.  ‘Martyn, your sister’s waiting for you.’

A rough gray horse was backing and shifting at the edge of the verandah, where the light of a kerosene-lamp fell on a brown calico habit and a white face under a gray felt hat.

‘Right, O,’ said Martyn.  ’I’m ready.  Better come and dine with us if you’ve nothing to do, Scott.  William, is there any dinner in the house?’

‘I’ll go home first and see,’ was the rider’s answer.  ’You can drive him over—­at eight, remember.’

Scott moved leisurely to his room, and changed into the evening-dress of the season and the country:  spotless white linen from head to foot, with a broad silk cummerbund.  Dinner at the Martyns’ was a decided improvement on the goat-mutton, twiney-tough fowl, and tinned entrees of the Club.  But it was a great pity Martyn could not afford to send his sister to the Hills for the hot weather.  As an Acting District Superintendent of Police, Martyn drew the magnificent pay of six hundred depreciated silver rupees a month, and his little four-roomed bungalow said just as much.  There were the usual blue-and-white striped jail-made rugs on the uneven floor; the usual glass studded Amritsar phulkaris draped to nails driven into the flaking whitewash of the walls; the usual half-dozen chairs that did not match, picked up at sales of dead men’s effects; and the usual streaks of black grease where the leather punka-thong ran through the wall.  It was as though everything had been unpacked the night before to be repacked next morning.  Not a door in the house was true on its hinges.  The little windows, fifteen feet up, were darkened with wasp-nests, and lizards hunted