nine p.m
`` Hum Dekta hai '' Like most of the quarters occupied by British officers , the house occupied by Major Roger Ticknor and his wife Mabel was `` enemy property , '' and its only virtue consisted in its being rent free . Grim , Jeremy , little Ticknor and his smaller wife , and I sat facing across a small deal table with a stuttering oil-lamp between us . In a house not far away some Orthodox Jews , arrayed in purple and green and orange , with fox-fur around the edges of their hats , were drunk and celebrating noisily the Feast of Esther ; so you can work out the exact date if you 're curious enough . The time was nine p.m. . We had talked the Anzac hurricane-drive through Palestine all over again from the beginning , taking world-known names in vain and doing honour to others that will stay unsung for lack of recognition , when one of those unaccountable pauses came , and for the sake of breaking silence , Mabel Ticknor asked a question . She was a little , plucky , pale-faced thing whom you called instinctively by her first name at the end of half an hour -- a sort of little mother of loose-ended men , who can make silk purses out of sows ' ears , and would n't know how to brag if she were tempted . `` Say , Jim , '' she asked , turning her head quickly like a bird toward Grim on my left , `` what 's your verdict about that man from Syria that Roger took in a cab to the Sikh hospital ?