ing--"You're another," and Mister Gladstone is calling down
brimstone upon the British Dominions, and the little black copy-boys are
whining "_kaa-pi chay-ha-yeh_" (copy wanted) like tired bees, and most
of the paper is as blank as Modred's shield.

But that is the amusing part of the year. There are six other months
when none ever come to call, and the thermometer walks inch by inch up
to the top of the glass, and the office is darkened to just above
reading-light, and the press-machines are red-hot of touch, and nobody
writes anything but accounts of amusements in the Hill-stations or
obituary notices. Then the telephone becomes a tinkling terror, because
it tells you of the sudden deaths of men and women that you knew
intimately, and the prickly-heat covers you with a garment, and you sit
down and write: "A slight increase of sickness is reported from the
Khuda Janta Khan District. The outbreak is purely sporadic in its
nature, and, thanks to the energetic efforts of the District
authorities, is now almost at an end. It is, however, with deep regret
we record the death," etc.

Then the sickness really breaks out, and the less recording and
reporting the better for the peace of the subscribers. But the Empires
and the Kings continue to divert themselves as selfishly as before, and
the Foreman thinks that a daily paper really ought to come out once in
twenty-four hours, and all the people at the Hill-stations in the middle
of their amusements say: "Good gracious! Why can't the paper be
sparkling? I'm sure there's plenty going on up here."

That is the dark half of the moon, and, as the advertisements say, "must
be experienced to be appreciated."

It was in that season, and a remarkably evil season, that the paper
began running the last issue of the week on Saturday night, which is to
say Sunday morning, after the custom of a London paper. This was a great
convenience, for immediately after the paper was put to bed, the dawn
would lower the thermometer from 96 deg. to almost 84 deg. for half an hour, and
in that chill--you have no idea how cold is 84 deg. on the grass until you
begin to pray for it--a very tired man could get off to sleep ere the
heat roused him.

One Saturday night it was my pleasant duty to put the paper to bed
alone. A King or courtier or a courtesan or a Community was going to die
or get a new Constitution, or do something that was important on the
other side of the world, and the paper was to