After dinner, as the Resident played neither cards nor billiards, the Colonel sat out on the verandah with him, all the while longing to be at the bridge-table inside; and, as his guest was a strict teetotaller, he did not like to order a drink for himself.  So he tried to keep awake and hide his yawns while listening to a prosy monologue on insects until the Residency carriage came to take Major Norton away.

When his guest had left, the Colonel entered the anteroom heaving a sigh of relief.

“Phew! thank God that’s over!” he exclaimed piously.  “Really, Norton becomes more of a bore every day.  I’m sick to death of hearing the life-story of every Indian insect for the hundredth time.  I’ll dream of coleoptera and Polly ’optera and other weird beasties to-night.”

The other officers looked up and laughed.  Ross rose from the bridge-table and said: 

“Come and take my place, sir; we’ve finished the rubber.  Have a drink; you want something to cheer you up after that infliction.  Boy! whiskey-soda Commanding Sahib ke waste lao. (Bring a whiskey and soda for the Commanding officer.)”

“You’ve my entire sympathy, Colonel,” said Major Hepburn, the Second in Command.  “It’s my turn to ask the Resident to dinner next.  I feel tempted to go on the sick-list to escape it.”

“I say, sir, I’ve got a good idea,” said an Irish subaltern named Daly, who was seated at the bridge-table.  “Couldn’t we pass a resolution at the next Mess meeting that in future no guests are ever to be asked to dinner?  That will save us from our weekly penance.”

The others laughed; but the Colonel, whose sense of humour was not his strong point, took the suggestion as being seriously meant.

“No, no; we couldn’t do that,” he said in an alarmed tone.  “The Resident would be very offended and might mention it to the General when he comes here on his annual inspection.”

The remark was very characteristic of Colonel Trevor, who was a man who dreaded responsibility and whose sole object in life was to reach safely the time when, his period of command being finished, he could retire on his full pension.  He was always haunted by the dread that some carelessness or mistake on his part or that of any of his subordinates might involve him in trouble with his superiors and prevent that happy consummation of his thirty years of Indian service.  This fear made him merciless to anyone under him whose conduct might bring the censure of the higher authorities on the innocent head of the Commanding Officer who was in theory responsible for the behaviour of his juniors.  It was commonly said in the regiment that he would cheerfully give up his own brother to be hanged to save himself the mildest official reprimand.  Perhaps he was not altogether to blame; for he was not his own master in private life.  It was hinted that Colonel Trevor commanded the battalion but that Mrs. Trevor commanded him.  And unfortunately there was no doubt that this lady interfered privately a good deal in regimental matters, much to the annoyance of the other officers.