, the Rajah of Rampur, gentlemen. What can I do
for you, please?'

The gentlemen were delighted. One was visibly French, the other
Russian, but they spoke English not much inferior to the Babu's. They
begged his kind offices. Their native servants had gone sick at Leh.
They had hurried on because they were anxious to bring the spoils of
the chase to Simla ere the skins grew moth-eaten. They bore a general
letter of introduction (the Babu salaamed to it orientally) to all
Government officials. No, they had not met any other shooting-parties
en route. They did for themselves. They had plenty of supplies. They
only wished to push on as soon as might be. At this he waylaid a
cowering hillman among the trees, and after three minutes' talk and a
little silver (one cannot be economical upon State service, though
Hurree's heart bled at the waste) the eleven coolies and the three
hangers-on reappeared. At least the Babu would be a witness to their
oppression.

'My royal master, he will be much annoyed, but these people are onlee
common people and grossly ignorant. If your honours will kindly
overlook unfortunate affair, I shall be much pleased. In a little
while rain will stop and we can then proceed. You have been shooting,
eh? That is fine performance!'

He skipped nimbly from one kilta to the next, making pretence to adjust
each conical basket. The Englishman is not, as a rule, familiar with
the Asiatic, but he would not strike across the wrist a kindly Babu who
had accidentally upset a kilta with a red oilskin top. On the other
hand, he would not press drink upon a Babu were he never so friendly,
nor would he invite him to meat. The strangers did all these things,
and asked many questions--about women mostly--to which Hurree returned
gay and unstudied answers. They gave him a glass of whitish fluid like
to gin, and then more; and in a little time his gravity departed from
him. He became thickly treasonous, and spoke in terms of sweeping
indecency of a Government which had forced upon him a white man's
education and neglected to supply him with a white man's salary. He
babbled tales of oppression and wrong till the tears ran down his
cheeks for the miseries of his land. Then he staggered off, singing
love-songs of Lower Bengal, and collapsed upon a wet tree-trunk. Never
was so unfortunate a product of English rule in India more unhappily
thrust upon aliens.

'They are all just of that pattern,' said o