So we played the game--oldest game on earth--and loveliest. Bungling moves we made, as you see, and sometimes did not know whose move it was. At length she admitted that this is a very unsafe world in which to be kind to soldiers. I told how fickle some of them were. She would not say she would--or wouldn't--make my case a permanent exception or a solitary one; yet with me she blissfully pooh-poohed the idea that our acquaintance was new, she being so wonderfully like my mother, and I being so wonderfully ditto, ditto. And when I burst into a blazing eulogy of my mother, my listener gave me kinder looks than I ever deserved of any woman alive. On my trying to reciprocate, she asked me for more flowers and hurried back to our earlier theme.
"I must not fail to tell you of a remarkable temple that we have seen; not that any are unworthy of mention, but this one is certainly very curious. It is known as the Temple of Rengenhoin, and contains one thousand idols of large size; then each idol in this lot is surrounded by several smaller ones, and there is one idol larger than all the rest. The[Pg 297] whole number is said to be 33,333. We did not count them to make sure that the estimate was correct, but I should think that there must be thirty thousand at least, so that a few odd thousands, more or less, would make no difference. The whole of the inside of the temple is full of them, and each figure is said to have a particular fable connected with it. The temple is nearly four hundred feet long, and is certainly a very fine building; and there is an artificial pond in front of it, which is covered with aquatic flowers in the season for them. There is a veranda that was used in olden times for a shooting-gallery for archery purposes; it is more than two hundred feet long, and there are records of some famous matches that have been shot there. The best on the books took place more than six hundred years ago, when one man is said to have hit the bull's-eye of the target 8,000 times out of 10,000, and another is reported to have done the same thing 8,133 times in 13,053. That was certainly good shooting, and I don't believe that it would be easy to find a bowman to-day who could equal it.
ONE:Back from Cathedral already, Thomas? she said.
To-day the work was not heavy, and nearly an hour before the interval for lunch he had finished the dictation of his answers. She knew his business engagements as well as himself, and reminding him that a land-agent was coming to see him at twelve on some private matter, took her papers into the little inner room. Then she came back for her typewriter, which stood on the table in the window where she usually worked, paused and came over to his table.Gregg failed to suppress an abrupt snigger. He lit a cigarette to cover his confusion. Once more he envisaged that flying figure on the horizon. "At the rate he was going," he remarked, steadily, "and barring accidents, I should say he's reached London by now."PEASANT AND HIS WIFE RETURNING FROM THE FIELD. PEASANT AND HIS WIFE RETURNING FROM THE FIELD."Yet you wouldn't--""Yes, for one thing, I've got to tell him that old Lucius Oliver can't be hung too high or too soon. For months he has been--"