It had seemed for a long time eminently proper that anybody who wanted Dora should ask her of me.

The application was impossible, but applications nearly always were impossible.

Nobody knew that better than the Secretary to the Government of India in the Home Department.
I squared my shoulders and we got through the soup.

It was necessary to apologize for the fish.

'I suppose one must remember,' I said, 'that it has to climb six thousand feet,' when suddenly he burst out.
'Sir William Lamb tells me,' he said, and stopped to swallow some wine, 'that there is something very good going in Calcutta and that I should ask you to help me to get it.