e said, 'I am a _chaprassi_![13] get
out!' and he hit me. Now that sitting-place was open to all, so I hit
him till he wept. He ran away for the Police, and I went away too, for
the Police here are all Sahibs. Can I have leave from two o'clock to go
and look for that man and hit him again?"

[13] messenger.

Behold the situation! An unknown city full of smell that makes one long
for rest and retirement, and a champing servant, not yet six hours in
the stew, who has started a blood-feud with an unknown _chaprassi_ and
clamours to go forth to the fray.

Alas! for the lost delusion of the heritage that was to be restored. Let
us sleep, let us sleep, and pray that Calcutta may be better to-morrow.

At present it is remarkably like sleeping with a corpse.

CHAPTER II

THE REFLECTIONS OF A SAVAGE.

Morning brings counsel. _Does_ Calcutta smell so pestiferously after
all? Heavy rain has fallen in the night. She is newly washed, and the
clear sunlight shows her at her best. Where, oh where, in all this
wilderness of life shall a man go?

The Great Eastern hums with life through all its hundred rooms. Doors
slam merrily, and all the nations of the earth run up and down the
staircases. This alone is refreshing, because the passers bump you and
ask you to stand aside. Fancy finding any place outside the Levee-room
where Englishmen are crowded together to this extent! Fancy sitting down
seventy strong to _table d'hote_ and with a deafening clatter of knives
and forks! Fancy finding a real bar whence drinks may be obtained! and,
joy of joys, fancy stepping out of the hotel into the arms of a live,
white, helmeted, buttoned, truncheoned Bobby! What would happen if one
spoke to this Bobby? Would he be offended? He is not offended. He is
affable. He has to patrol the pavement in front of the Great Eastern and
to see that the crowding carriages do not jam. Toward a presumably
respectable white he behaves as a man and a brother. There is no
arrogance, about him. And this is disappointing. Closer inspection shows
that he is not a _real_ Bobby after all. He is a Municipal Police
Something and his uniform is not correct; at least if they have not
changed the dress of the men at Home. But no matter. Later on we will
inquire into the Calcutta Bobby, because he is a white man, and has to
deal with some of the "toughest" folk that ever set out of malice
aforethought to paint Job Charnock's city vermilion. You must not, you
can