"I say, look here, old chap!" he panted, "I'm just off to catch my
train to Tonghoo, but I've had a word with FitzGerald; it will be all
right about the chummery; they can take you in on Monday. I see Salter
on board, one of the head assistants in Gregory's; I expect he has come
to meet you. Well, I must run; so long!"

This good-natured fellow passenger was immediately succeeded by a cabin
steward. "Been looking for you everywhere, sir," he said; "there's a
gentleman come aboard asking for you." As he concluded, a spare,
middle-aged man wearing a large topee and a dust-coloured suit
approached and said:

"Mr. Shafto, I believe?" and offered a welcoming hand.

"Yes," assented the new arrival.

"I'm Salter from Gregory's. Manders, the head assistant, asked me to
meet you. I'll be glad to help you get your things ashore and take you
to the Strand Hotel, where I have booked you a room."

"That is most awfully good of you," replied Shafto. "On Monday I
believe I am to get quarters in a chummery."

"Ah, so you are settled, I see. Now, if you will show me your baggage,
I have a couple of coolies here with a cart and a taxi for ourselves."

Mr. Salter proved to be remarkably prompt in his measures, and in less
than ten minutes Shafto found himself following his flat narrow back
down the steep gangway and setting his foot for the first time on the
soil of Burma. He halted for a moment to look about. Here was a
landmark in his life, a new sphere lay before him; the street was
humming and alive with people, and he stared at the jostling, motley
crowd of British, Burmese, Chinese, mostly a gaily-clad ever-changing
multitude. Among them were shaven priests in yellow robes. Shans in
flapping hats; right in front of him stood a stalwart Burman, wearing a
white jacket, a pink silk handkerchief, twisted jauntily around his
bullet head, and a yellow Lungi, girded to the knee, displayed a
three-tailed cat tattooed on the back of each substantial calf.

And what a curious, soft and penetrating atmosphere; moist and loaded
with unfamiliar, aromatic odours!

However, Mr. Salter, a man of action, had no time to spare for
contemplation, and briskly hustled the stranger into a waiting
taxi--for the old days of the rattling, shattered _gharry_ are numbered.

"I suppose this is all new to you?" said Shafto's acquaintance as they
struggled up the crowded Strand, lined with imposing offices and vast
_godowns_, or warehouse