by waging war with the dak-bungalow khansama. Then they
return to their long chairs or their couches, and sleep. Some of them,
in old days, used to wait as long as six weeks--six weeks in May, when
the sixty miles from Marwar Junction to Jodhpur was covered in three
days by slow-pacing bullock carts! Some of them are bagmen, able to
describe the demerits of every dak-bungalow from the Peshin to Pagan,
and southward to Hyderabad--men of substance who have "The Trades" at
their back. It is a terrible thing to be in "The Trades," that great
Doomsday Book of Calcutta, in whose pages are written the names of
doubtful clients. Let light-hearted purchasers take note.

And the others, who wait and swear and spit and exchange anecdotes--what
are they? Bummers, land-sharks, skirmishers for their bread. It would be
cruel in a fellow-tramp to call them loafers. Their lien upon the State
may have its origin in horses, or anything else; for the State buys
anything vendible, from Abdul Rahman's most promising importations to a
patent, self-acting corkscrew. They are a mixed crew, but amusing and
full of strange stories of adventure by land and sea. And their ends are
as curiously brutal as their lives. A wanderer was once swept into the
great, still back-water that divides the loaferdom of Upper India--that
is to say, Calcutta and Bombay--from the north-going current of Madras,
where Nym and Pistol are highly finished articles with certificates of
education. This back-water is a dangerous place to break down in, as the
men on the Road know well. "You can run Rajputana in a pair o' sack
breeches an' an old hat, but go to Central Injia with money," says the
wisdom of the Road. So the waif died in the bazaar, and the
Barrack-master Sahib gave orders for his burial. It might have been the
bazaar sergeant, or it might have been an hireling who was charged with
the disposal of the body. At any rate, it was an Irishman who said to
the Barrack-master Sahib: "Fwhat about that loafer?" "Well, what's the
matter?" "I'm considtherin whether I'm to mash in his thick head, or to
break his long legs. He won't fit the store-coffin anyways."

Here the story ends. It may be an old one; but it struck the Englishman
as being rather unsympathetic in its nature; and he has preserved it for
this reason. Were the Englishman a mere Secretary of State instead of an
enviable and unshackled vagabond, he would remodel that Philanthropic
Institution of Teaching You