But Linforth was paying very little attention to the plethoric gentleman.  Sir John introduced him as Colonel Fitzwarren, and Linforth bowed politely.  Then he asked of Sir John: 

“Your car was not seriously damaged, I suppose?”

“Keep us here two days,” said Sir John.  “The chauffeur will have to go on by diligence to-morrow to get a new sparking plug.  Perhaps we shall see more of you in consequence.”

Linforth’s eyes travelled back to Mrs. Oliver.

“We are in no hurry,” he said slowly.  “We shall rest here probably for a day or so.  May I introduce my friend?”

He introduced him as the son of the Khan of Chiltistan, and Mrs. Oliver’s eyes, which had been quietly resting upon Linforth’s face, turned towards Shere Ali, and as quietly rested upon his.

“Then, perhaps, you can tell me,” said Colonel Fitzwarren, “how it was I never saw a tiger in India, though I stayed there four months.  A most disappointing country, I call it.  I looked for a tiger everywhere and I never saw one—­no, not one.”

The Colonel’s one idea of the Indian Peninsula was a huge tiger waiting somewhere in a jungle to be shot.

But Shere Ali was paying no more attention to the Colonel’s disparagements than Linforth had done.

“Will you join us at supper?” said Sir John, and both young men replied simultaneously, “We shall be very pleased.”

Sir John Casson smiled.  He could never quite be sure whether it was or was not to Mrs. Oliver’s credit that her looks made so powerful an appeal to the chivalry of young men.  “All young men immediately want to protect her,” he was wont to say, “and their trouble is that they can’t find anyone to protect her from.”

He watched Shere Ali and Dick Linforth with a sly amusement, and as a result of his watching promised himself yet more amusement during the next two days.  He was roused from this pleasing anticipation by his irascible friend, Colonel Fitzwarren, who, without the slightest warning, flung a loud and defiant challenge across the table to Shere All.

“I don’t believe there is one,” he cried, and breathed heavily.

Shere Ali interrupted his conversation with Mrs. Oliver.  “One what?” he asked with a smile.

“Tiger, sir, tiger,” said the Colonel, rapping with his knuckles upon the table.  “Of what else should I be speaking?  I don’t believe there’s a tiger in India outside the Zoo.  Otherwise, why didn’t I see one?”

Colonel Fitzwarren glared at Shere Ali as though he held him personally responsible for that unhappy omission.  Sir John, however, intervened with smooth speeches and for the rest of supper the conversation was kept to less painful topics.  But the Colonel had not said his last word.  As they went upstairs to their rooms he turned to Shere Ali, who was just behind him, and sighed heavily.

“If I had shot a tiger in India,” he said, with an indescribable look of pathos upon his big red face, “it would have made a great difference to my life.”