reat
compliment to be asked to write it. What fun to be a man and have a
career! In my more exalted moments it is sometimes borne in on me that
I should have been a man and a diplomatist. I feel, though I admit
with no grounds to speak of, that I might have been a great success in
that most interesting profession. One never knows, and by putting my
foot in it very conscientiously all round, I might have earned for
myself a reputation of Machiavellian cunning!

What do you think I met at dinner last night? A Travelling Radical
Member of Parliament!

Of course I had read of them--often--and knew exactly what sort of
creatures they are--fearful wild fowl who come to India for six
weeks--

"Comprehend in half a mo'
What it takes a man ten years or so
To know that he will never know,"

tell the native they want to be a brother to him, and go home to write
a book about the way India is misgoverned.

I was delighted at the prospect of seeing one quite close at hand. I
pictured a strong still man with a beard, soft fat hands, and a sob
in his voice that, at election times, would touch the great, deep
throbbing Heart of the People. Instead, I beheld a small, thin man,
with eyes as tired as any of the poor sun-dried bureaucrats, and a
wide mouth with a humorous twitch at the corners; a man one couldn't
imagine wanting to touch anything so silly as the Heart of the People.
He talked, I noticed, very little during dinner, but the men were
unusually long in joining us afterwards, and as Boggley clambered
after me into the _tikka-gharry_ that was to take us home: "That's a
ripping fellow!" said Boggley.

Another illusion shattered!

I hasten to set your mind at rest on one point. I have a chaperon, and
a very nice, though entirely unnecessary, one. Her name is Mrs. Victor
Ormonde, and she knows my people at home; that is why she bothers with
me. She is a most attractive woman to look at, tall, dark and slender,
with the dearest little turned-up nose, which makes her look rather
impertinent, and she is a little inclined to be sniffy to some people;
she considers Calcutta women suburban! Her husband is quite different,
friends with everyone, a cheerful soul and as Irish as he can be. He
is very fond of chaffing his exclusive wife. "Now do be affable," he
implored her the other night, before they went to a large and somewhat
mixed gathering. "And was she affable?" I asked next morning. "Oh!
rollin' about on the floor,"