
FORE:One o'clock. Miss Harper suggested a halt to feed the horses. I, knowing what it would cost me to dismount and go walking about, said no, thrice no; let us first get back upon the main road in front of that battery. On, therefore, we hurried, and soon the reality of the war was vivid to us again. In a stretch of wet road where the team had mutely begged leave to walk and the ladies had urged me to sing we had at length paused in a pebbly rivulet to allow the weary animals to drink, and the girls and the aunt and the greenwood and I were all in chorus bidding somebodyKeeling had intended to pass an hour among his books to wash off the scum, so to speak, of this atrocious conversation, but when he got to his library, and had taken down his new edition of Omar Khayyam, which Charles Propert had induced him to buy, he found it could give him very little emotion. He was aware of the exquisite type, of the strange sensuous wood-cuts that somehow{289} affected him like a subtle odour, of the beautiful binding, and not least of the text itself, but all these perfections were no more than presented to him; they did not penetrate. He could not rid himself of the scum; the odiousness of his wifes approbation would not be washed off. And what made it cling was the fact that she had divined him correctly, had rejoiced at his serving the Club out. It was just that which Norah deprecated, and he felt that Lord Inverbrooms complete silence on the point, his forbearance to hint ever so faintly that perhaps Keeling would reconsider his action, expressed disapprobation as eloquently as Norahs phrase, which he had finished for her, had done. It was a caddish act, that was what they both thought about it, and Alice, when she had finished her nonsense about Mr Silverdales rubber of bridge, had a similar protest in her mind. He did not rate poor Alices mind at any high figure; it was but the fact that she was allied to the other two, and opposed to her mother, that added a little weight to her opinion.

FORE:"Good-night, gentlemen," said the doctor at last. As he passed into the darkness Quinn bent a mock frown upon his young superior.

FORE:He did not fail to notice that he was sir no longer, but Mr Keeling, nor did he fail to grasp the significance. He was sir in his office, he was Mr Keeling in his house. Somehow that pleased him: it was like a mot juste in a comedy.

FORE:"Yes, I do, mean it! Smith, Ned's a grand fellow. I'm glad I came here yesterday."

FORE:Quite. You will have done yourself justice."Looking through the hatch, we could see them grouped together and engaged in earnest conversation. Two were dead or dying, and from one of them there was a stream of blood slowly oozing. A coolie who appeared to be a ringleader among them dipped his pen in the blood and wrote on a sheet of paper:
“I love Oleose, I highly recommend it, Everyone Try It Now”
- Krin Fox