a wanderer and a vagabond like myself, but with an educated taste
for whiskey. He told tales of things he had seen and done, of
out-of-the-way corners of the Empire into which he had penetrated, and
of adventures in which he risked his life for a few days' food.

"If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than the
crows where they'd get their next day's rations, it isn't seventy
millions of revenue the land would be paying--it's seven hundred
millions," said he; and as I looked at his mouth and chin I was disposed
to agree with him.

We talked politics--the politics of Loaferdom that sees things from the
underside where the lath and plaster is not smoothed off--and we talked
postal arrangements because my friend wanted to send a telegram back
from the next station to Ajmir, the turning-off place from the Bombay to
the Mhow line as you travel westward. My friend had no money beyond
eight annas which he wanted for dinner, and I had no money at all, owing
to the hitch in the Budget before mentioned. Further, I was going into a
wilderness where, though I should resume touch with the Treasury, there
were no telegraph offices. I was, therefore, unable to help him in any
way.

"We might threaten a Station-master, and make him send a wire on tick,"
said my friend, "but that'd mean enquiries for you and for me, and
_I_'ve got my hands full these days. Did you say you were travelling
back along this line within any days?"

"Within ten," I said.

"Can't you make it eight?" said he. "Mine is rather urgent business."

"I can send your telegram within ten days if that will serve you," I
said.

"I couldn't trust the wire to fetch him now I think of it. It's this
way. He leaves Delhi on the 23rd for Bombay. That means he'll be running
through Ajmir about the night of the 23rd."

"But I'm going into the Indian Desert," I explained.

"Well _and_ good," said he. "You'll be changing at Marwar Junction to
get into Jodhpore territory--you must do that--and he'll be coming
through Marwar Junction in the early morning of the 24th by the Bombay
Mail. Can you be at Marwar Junction on that time? 'T won't be
inconveniencing you because I know that there's precious few pickings to
be got out of these Central India States--even though you pretend to be
correspondent or the _Backwoodsman_."

"Have you ever tried that trick?" I asked.

"Again and again, but the Residents find you out, and then you get
escorted to th