, so if I can hammer out anything at all approaching the level of the usual Ode output we ought to be all right. So far I’m getting along so comfortably that I begin to be afraid that I must be one of the gifted few.”

“It’s rather late in the day for a coronation ode, isn’t it?” said Bertie.

“Of course,” said Clovis; “this is going to be a Durbar Recessional, the sort of thing that you can keep by you for all time if you want to.”

“Now I understand your choice of a place to write it in,” said Bertie van Tahn, with the air of one who has suddenly unravelled a hitherto obscure problem; “you want to get the local temperature.”

“I came here to get freedom from the inane interruptions of the mentally deficient,” said Clovis, “but it seems I asked too much of fate.”