itled to immediately
after, so that there can be no mistake. This strikes newcomers sometimes
as a little professional, especially when a hand accompanies, pointing;
but it is the only possible way where there are no streets and no
numbers, but where houses are dropped about a hilltop as if they had
fallen from a pepper-pot. In sticking his card out like that Mr. Armour
seemed to imagine himself au quatrieme or au cinquieme somewhere on
the south side of the Seine; it betrayed rather a ridiculous lack of
conformity. He was high enough up, however, to give any illusion; I had
to stop to find the wind to announce myself. There was nobody else to do
it if I except the dog.

I walked into the veranda and shouted. Then I saw that one end of it was
partly glazed off, and inside sat a young man in his shirt-sleeves with
his back to the door.

In reply he called out, 'That you, Rosario?' and I stood silent, taken
somewhat aback.

There was only one Rosario in Simla, and he was a subordinate in my own
office. Again the hateful need to explain. Between subordinate clerks
and officials in Simla there is a greater gulf fixed than was ever
imagined in parable. Besides, Rosario had a plain strain of what we
call 'the country' in him, a plain strain, that is, of the colour of the
country. It was certainly the first time in my official career that I
had been mistaken for Rosario.

Armour turned round and saw me--that I was a stranger.

He got up at once. 'Oh,' he said, 'I thought it was Rosario.

'It isn't,' I replied, 'my name is Philips. May I ask whether you were
expecting Mr. Rosario? I can come again, you know.'

'Oh, it doesn't matter. Sit down. He may drop in or he may not--I rather
thought he would today. It's a pull up, isn't it, from the Mall? Have a
whisky and soda.'

I stood on the threshold spellbound. It was just the smell that bound
me, the good old smell of oil paints and turpentine and mediums and
varnish and new canvas that you never by any chance put your nose into
in any part of Asia. It carried me back twenty years to old haunts,
old friends, old joys, ideals, theories. Ah, to be young and have a
temperament! For I had one then--that instant in Armour's veranda proved
it to me forever.

'No thanks,' I said. 'If you don't mind I'll just have the smell.'

The young fellow knew at once that I liked the smell. 'Well, have a
chair, anyhow,' he said, and took one himself and sat down opposite me,
letting his