g feet. The Company gives one hour for meals
between eleven and twelve. On the stroke of noon there is another rush
back to the works or the offices, and Jamalpur sleeps through the
afternoon till four or half-past, and then rouses for tennis at the
institute.

In the hot weather it splashes in the swimming bath, or reads, for it
has a library of several thousand books. One of the most nourishing
lodges in the Bengal jurisdiction--"St. George in the East"--lives at
Jamalpur, and meets twice a month. Its members point out with
justifiable pride that all the fittings were made by their own hands;
and the lodge in its accoutrements and the energy of the craftsmen can
compare with any in India. But the institute is the central gathering
place, and its half-dozen tennis-courts and neatly-laid-out grounds seem
to be always full. Here, if a stranger could judge, the greater part of
the flirtation of Jamalpur is carried out, and here the dashing
apprentice--the apprentices are the liveliest of all--learns that there
are problems harder than any he studies at the night school, and that
the heart of a maiden is more inscrutable than the mechanism of a
locomotive. On Tuesdays and Fridays, the volunteers parade. A and B
Companies, 150 strong in all, of the E. I. R. Volunteers, are stationed
here with the band. Their uniform, grey with red facings, is not lovely,
but they know how to shoot and drill. They have to. The "Company" makes
it a condition of service that a man must be a volunteer; and volunteer
in something more than name he must be, or some one will ask the reason
why. Seeing that there are no regulars between Howrah and Dinapore, the
"Company" does well in exacting this toll. Some of the old soldiers are
wearied of drill, some of the youngsters don't like it, but--the way
they entrain and detrain is worth seeing. They are as mobile a corps as
can be desired, and perhaps ten or twelve years hence the Government may
possibly be led to take a real interest in them and spend a few thousand
rupees in providing them with real soldiers' kits--not uniform and rifle
merely. Their ranks include all sorts and conditions of men--heads of
the "Loco." and "Traffic," the "Company" is no respecter of rank--clerks
in the "audit," boys from mercantile firms at home, fighting with the
intricacies of time, fare, and freight tables; guards who have grown
grey in the service of the Company; mail and passenger drivers with
nerves of cast-iron,