'Don't see it. When I was on that Chinese pig-boat, our captain got credit
for saving about twenty-five thousand very seasick little pigs, when our
old tramp of a steamer fell foul of a timber-junk. Now, taking those pigs
as a parallel----'

'Oh, confound your parallels! Whenever I try to improve your soul, you
always drag in some anecdote from your very shady past. Pigs aren't the
British public; and self-respect is self-respect the world over. Go out for
a walk and try to catch some self-respect. And, I say, if the Nilghai comes
up this evening can I show him your diggings?'

'Surely.' And Dick departed, to take counsel with himself in the rapidly
gathering London fog.

Half an hour after he had left, the Nilghai laboured up the staircase. He
was the chiefest, as he was the youngest, of the war correspondents, and
his experiences dated from the birth of the needle-gun. Saving only his
ally, Keneu the Great War Eagle, there was no man higher in the craft
than he, and he always opened his conversation with the news that there
would be trouble in the Balkans in the spring. Torpenhow laughed as he
entered.

'Never mind the trouble in the Balkans. Those little states are always
screeching. You've heard about Dick's luck?'

'Yes; he has been called up to notoriety, hasn't he? I hope you keep him
properly humble. He wants suppressing from time to time.'

'He does. He's beginning to take liberties with what he thinks is his