whom
they had known and danced with aforetime.

They used to take a big horse-blanket and sit on the grass a little to
the left of the lower end, where there is a dip in the ground, and where
the occupied graves stop short and the ready-made ones are not
ready. Each well-regulated Indian Cemetery keeps half-a-dozen graves
permanently open for contingencies and incidental wear and tear. In the
Hills these are more usually baby's size, because children who come up
weakened and sick from the Plains often succumb to the effects of the
Rains in the Hills or get pneumonia from their ayahs taking them through
damp pine-woods after the sun has set. In Cantonments, of course, the
man's size is more in request; these arrangements varying with the
climate and population.

One day when the Man's Wife and the Tertium Quid had just arrived in the
Cemetery, they saw some coolies breaking ground. They had marked out a
full-size grave, and the Tertium Quid asked them whether any Sahib was
sick. They said that they did not know; but it was an order that they
should dig a Sahib's grave.

'Work away,' said the Tertium Quid, 'and let's see how it's done.'

The coolies worked away, and the Man's Wife and the Tertium Quid watched
and talked for a couple of hours while the grave was being deepened.
Then a coolie, taking the earth in baskets as it was thrown up, jumped
over the grave.

'That's queer,' said the Tertium Quid. 'Where's my ulster?'

'What's queer?' said the Man's Wife.

'I have got a chill down my back just as if a goose had walked over my
grave.'

'Why do you look at the thing, then?' said the Man's Wife. 'Let us go.'

The Tertium Quid stood at the head of the grave, and stared without
answering for a space. Then he said, dropping a pebble down, 'It
is nasty and cold: horribly cold. I don't think I shall come to the
Cemetery any more. I don't think grave-digging is cheerful.'

The two talked and agreed that the Cemetery was depressing. They also
arranged for a ride next day out from the Cemetery through the Mashobra
Tunnel up to Fagoo and back, because all the world was going to a
garden-party at Viceregal Lodge, and all the people of Mashobra would go
too.

Coming up the Cemetery road, the Tertium Quid's horse tried to bolt
uphill, being tired with standing so long, and managed to strain a back
sinew.

'I shall have to take the mare to-morrow,' said the Tertium Quid, 'and
she will stand nothing heavier than a sna