Published: Civil and Military Gazette, 18 May 1888; Pioneer Mail, 27 May 1888

Attribution: In Scrapbook 4 (28/4, pp. 63–4).

Text: Civil and Military Gazette.

Notes: In May 1888, RK was back in Lahore, substituting for the absent editor of the CMG and living at the Punjab Club. Of this he wrote to his friend Mrs Edmonia Hill: ‘I have returned to the old, wearying, Godless futile life at a club – same men, same talk, same billiards – all connu and triply connu and, except for what I carry in my heart, I could almost swear that I had never been away’ ([9–11] May, 1888: Letters, i, 171).

‘In Gilded Halls’ was mistakenly identified in Livingston, Bibliography, as the story collected in The Story of the Gadsbys under the title of ‘The World Without’. The two stories are both dialogues set in ‘the Degchi Club’ but are not otherwise similar. The error was repeated in Chandler's Summary, in the Stewart-Yeats Bibliographical Catalogue and in Harbord.

Reprinted in ‘Turnovers’, ii, 1888; in the Martindell–Ballard pamphlets, and in Harbord, i, 299–302.

First Voice: Sherry bitters lao!

Second Voice: Khitmatgar! why the dickens isn't that punkah being kenched?

Third Voice: And what news have you of your people at the Hills? Mrs. Tomlinson quite well?

Second Voice (wearily): Yes. She's all right. I say, you're a married man, what do you think is a fair monthly average for quarters in “Purgatory”.

Fourth Voice: Yes, I took him twice round the jumps– the brute ran out to begin with, but he was all right after that. ‘Jove! I raised a thirst that I wouldn't ha’ sold for anything.

Fifth Voice: “Rejoice, O young man, in the days of thy youth, when the silver bowl is generally within arm's reach, and the clouds return not after the rain.”

First Voice: Bet you a chick that's wrong. The silver bowl doesn't come in at all.

Fifth Voice (lazily): Take your oath? Confine yourself to sherry and bitters.