Let him talk, and hear you laugh when he was funny, and he was
satisfied. He seemed to have no inordinate desire for admiration or even
for approbation. He was fond of telling tales of adventure, some
wonderful, some absurd, some having nothing in them but his own
presence, and occasionally, while the detail was good the point for the
sake of which it had been introduced would be missing; but he was just
as willing to tell one, the joke of which turned against himself, as one
amusing at the expense of another. Like many of his day who had spent
their freshest years in India, he was full of the amusements and sports
with which so much otherwise idle time is passed by Englishmen in the
East, and seemed to think nothing connected with the habits of their
countrymen there could fail to interest those at home. Every now and
then throughout the dinner he would say, "Oh, that reminds me!" and then
he would tell something that happened when he was at such and such a
place, when So-and-So "of our regiment" was out tiger-shooting, or
pig-sticking, or whatever the sport might be; "and if Mr. Raymount will
take a glass of wine with me, I will tell him the story"--for he was
constantly drinking wine, after the old fashion, with this or that one
of the company.
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