ns with thousand-foot drills. He
must know by name, at least, one thousand of the men on the works, and
must fluently speak the vernaculars of the low castes. If he has
Sonthali, which is more elaborate than Greek, so much the better for
him. He must know how to handle men of all grades, and, while holding
himself aloof, must possess sufficient grip of the men's private lives
to be able to see at once the merits of a charge of attempted abduction
preferred by a clucking, croaking Kol against a fluent English-speaking
Brahmin. For he is literally the Light of Justice, and to him the
injured husband and the wrathful father look for redress. He must be on
the spot and take all responsibility when any specially risky job is
under way in the pit, and he can claim no single hour of the day or the
night for his own. From eight in the morning till one in the afternoon
he is coated with coal-dust and oil. From one till eight in the evening
he has office work. After eight o'clock he is free to attend to anything
that he may be wanted for.

This is a soberly drawn picture of a life that Sahibs on the mines
actually enjoy. They are spared all private socio-official worry, for
the Company, in its mixture of State and private interest, is as
perfectly cold-blooded and devoid of bias as any great Department of the
Empire. If certain things be done, well and good. If certain things be
not done the defaulter goes, and his place is filled by another. The
conditions of service are graven on stone. There may be generosity;
there undoubtedly is justice, but above all, there is freedom within
broad limits. No irrepressible shareholder cripples the executive arm
with suggestions and restrictions, and no private piques turn men's
blood to gall within them. They work like horses and are happy.

When he can snatch a free hour, the grimy, sweating, cardigan-jacketed,
ammunition-booted, pick-bearing ruffian turns into a well-kept English
gentleman, who plays a good game of billiards, and has a batch of new
books from England every week. The change is sudden, but in Giridih
nothing is startling. It is right and natural that a man should be
alternately Valentine and Orson, specially Orson. It is right and
natural to drive--always behind a mad horse--away and away towards the
lonely hills till the flaming coke ovens become glow-worms on the dark
horizon, and in the wilderness to find a lovely English maiden teaching
squat, filthy Sonthal girls how t