you." Titus clutched the bundle awkwardly. How was he going to manage a meal with this thing to haul about? He was glad to relinquish the burden to Dr. Lash. "What I want to know," he began in his plummiest drawl.

"Yes?"

Titus pinned the Ambassador firmly in his gaze. He was tired of being a tame poodle. "I wondered why a pack of Yanks are making these great discoveries. I get the distinct sense that Britain's no longer in the forefront of human endeavour."

The Ambassador turned red. Only a few disjoint syllables came from his open mouth. "Shameful backsliding, I call it," Titus pursued, twisting the knife. "The work we put into keeping the Empire on top of things, fighting the Boers, trekking into the hinterlands of the globe,friend." The child's tent was beside the Longtrees'. Miranda was not asleep, but sitting up in her sleeping bag. Shell ducked inside while Titus knelt in the low doorway. "Here's Titus to say goodnight, darling. Are you sad about Buck, Titus?"

"Yes, very much so." A familiar trembling tension filled the nylon bubble. Titus could only pray that the child wouldn't go into another screaming tantrum. He tried to think of something soothing to say. "I like horses too much to let them suffer."

"People?"

Titus gulped, peering. It was too dark to see more than the white blur of the child's nightgown. Was she asking whether it was done to put down a sick person the same way? Please God that the moderns had a kind and wise end prepared