"And now tell us about your first puppy-show all over again,"
said one.
"And about the earth-stoppin'. Was that all Ben's own invention?"
said another.
"Wait a moment," said a large, clean-shaven man--not an
M.F.H.--at the end of the table. "Are your villagers habitually
beaten by your Governor when they fail to stop foxes' holes?"
The tone and the phrase were enough even if, as the Inspector
confessed afterwards, the big, blue double-chinned man had not
looked so like Beagle-boy. He took him on for the honour of
Ethiopia.
"We only hunt twice a week--sometimes three times. I've never
known a man chastised more than four times a week unless there's
a bye."
The large loose-lipped man flung his napkin down, came round the
table, cast himself into the chair next the Inspector, and leaned
forward earnestly, so that he breathed in the Inspector's face.
"Chastised with what?" he said.
"With the kourbash--on the feet. A kourbash is a strip of old
hippo-hide with a sort of keel on it, like the cutting edge of a
boar's tusk.
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