''
``It's rather like casting pearls into a trough,''
remarked Clovis pleasantly, ``but I don't mind reading you
bits of it. It begins with a general dispersal of the
Durbar participants:
`` `Back to their homes in Himalayan heights
The stale pale elephants of Cutch Behar
Roll like great galleons on a tideless sea---' ''
``I don't believe Cutch Behar is anywhere near the
Himalayan region,'' interrupted Bertie. ``You ought to have
an atlas on hand when you do this sort of thing; and why
stale and pale?''
``After the late hours and the excitement, of course,''
said Clovis; ``and I said their _homes_ were in the
Himalayas. You can have Himalayan elephants in Cutch Behar,
I suppose, just as you have Irish-bred horses running at
Ascot.''
``You said they were going back to the Himalayas,''
objected Bertie.
``Well, they would naturally be sent home to recuperate.
It's the usual thing out there to turn elephants loose in
the hills, just as we put horses out to grass in this
country.''
Clovis could at least flatter himself that he had infused
some of the reckless splendour of the East into his
mendacity.
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