d thank him not to speak or write to his daughter
any more. "Very well," said Strickland, for he did not wish to make
his lady-love's life a burden. After one long talk with Miss Youghal he
dropped the business entirely.

The Youghals went up to Simla in April.

In July, Strickland secured three months' leave on "urgent private
affairs." He locked up his house--though not a native in the Providence
would wittingly have touched "Estreekin Sahib's" gear for the world--and
went down to see a friend of his, an old dyer, at Tarn Taran.

Here all trace of him was lost, until a sais met me on the Simla Mall
with this extraordinary note:

"Dear old man,

"Please give bearer a box of cheroots--Supers, No. I, for preference.
They are freshest at the Club. I'll repay when I reappear; but at
present I'm out of Society.

"Yours,

"E. STRICKLAND."

I ordered two boxes, and handed them over to the sais with my love. That
sais was Strickland, and he was in old Youghal's employ, attached to
Miss Youghal's Arab. The poor fellow was suffering for an English
smoke, and knew that whatever happened I should hold my tongue till the
business was over.

Later on, Mrs. Youghal, who was wrapped up in her servants, began
talking at houses where she called of her paragon among saises--the man
who was never too busy to get up in the morning and pick flowers for
the breakfast-table, and who blacked--actually BLACKED--the hoofs of his
horse like a London coachman! The turnout of Miss Youghal's Arab was a
wonder and a delight. Strickland--Dulloo, I mean--found his reward
in the pretty things that Miss Youghal said to him when she went out
riding. Her parents were pleased to find she had forgotten all her
foolishness for young Strickland and said she was a good girl.

Strickland vows that the two months of his service were the most rigid
mental discipline he has ever gone through. Quite apart from the little
fact that the wife of one of his fellow-saises fell in love with him and
then tried to poison him with arsenic because he would have nothing
to do with her, he had to school himself into keeping quiet when Miss
Youghal went out riding with some man who tried to flirt with her, and
he was forced to trot behind carrying the blanket and hearing every
word! Also, he had to keep his temper when he was slanged in "Benmore"
porch by a policeman--especially once when he was abused by a Naik he
had himself recruited from Isser Jang village--