Shafto received this advice with a shout of laughter.

“A racer and a car on four hundred rupees a month!  FitzGerald, you are raving mad.  If I followed your advice——­” he paused.

“You would soon be shunted out of Gregory’s,” supplemented MacNab, who, with impassive face, was lolling in a long chair, a silent but attentive listener.

“Ah, don’t be minding that fellow!” protested FitzGerald.  “Shure, he’d sell his father’s gravestone, if he ever had the heart to put it up.”

“Well, I pay my way, Fitz, and can walk down Phayre Street at my case, whilst you——­” he paused significantly.

“Oh, well, I own a few bills, I know—­six hundred rupees a month goes no way here, but it’ll be all right when my ship comes in; anyhow, I’ll have had a good time—­I’ll have that to look back upon when I’m an old fellow upon the shelf.  Now you,” suddenly turning to stare at MacNab, “never spend a rupee; you wouldn’t take a taxi to save your life, never go to a cinema or a concert, nothing that costs money; you just bicycle and drink lemon squashes and write home.”

“Oh, if you want to ride in taxis and go to cinemas, you might as well be in London,” put in Roscoe, who had joined them.

“I wish to the Lord I was!” declared FitzGerald; “standing at the corner of Piccadilly Circus this blessed minute, and making up my mind whether to go to the Criterion grill or to Prince’s?”

“But as you happen to be in Rangoon, and not Piccadilly Circus, why don’t you open your eyes and see the place, and enjoy it?”

“Enjoy!” repeated FitzGerald with a dramatic gesture; “see it?  I see a deal too much of it; while you fellows are snoozing in bed, I’m turning out filthy liquor shops, drug stores, tea houses, and stopping Chinese fights, smuggling and murder.”

“Yes, we know all that,” rejoined Roscoe; “you look into the dark, Shafto and I see the bright side of this country.”

“Oh, yes, you’re a bright pair, and here, I’m off!” exclaimed the police officer, as he suddenly caught sight of a mounted orderly and thundered down the stairs.

Roscoe was neither economical, nor yet extravagant; he patronised the theatres and shows, made expeditions into the country on “Later On,” read many books, and occasionally took a trip up the river in a cargo boat.

Shafto and Roscoe had one taste in common—­a craving to see, know, understand and, as it were, get under the skin of this wonderful land.  An impossible achievement!  From the first they had been drawn together; they were searching in an eager way for the same object; they had both been at a public school and once, when Shafto dropped a word about Sandhurst, Roscoe said: 

“I was intended for the Army, but I couldn’t pass the doctor—­rather a facer after scraping through the exam.; when that was knocked on the head, I got a post as assistant-master, but I couldn’t stick it for more than a couple of years; after that, I was in a newspaper office; then I got badly stage-struck and went on the boards.  Unfortunately, I was not a success; I never could do the love parts—­I neither bellowed nor whined; at last my people got fairly sick of me, I was so often ‘resting,’ and they made a combined effort and hustled me out here into the oil business, and here I am in my element.”