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 a quarter blucher whose owner the next second opened the cablegram.

“Gloops, London, England,” he read; and the message continued, in a typical Babu jumble of mixed metaphors and martyrized slang:

“My sainted grandaunt Priscilla Mary Jane!” murmured the sandy-haired man. “The whole swag! My word! Won't the guv'nor be pleased though! But what in the name of the three-cornered dooce does that Bansi lad mean by his allusion to Burke's Peerage? Well—I fancy the guv'nor will know.”

And he lit a rank woodbine cigarette and resumed the inspiring study of Poultney's Inn, drumming loudly, at rhythmic intervals, on the window pane.