or
offences real or imaginary. He will not be quite so ready to be on
duty for unlimited periods at his master's pleasure, and he will
expect to be allowed time to go to church. Some of these new
characteristics may be of the nature of defects, but they also mean
that he is more of a man than he was in his heathen days. And as
regards honesty and general trustworthiness, although every Indian
Christian is not altogether impeccable, he is on a completely
different plane to his heathen comrade. It is also an unspeakable
relief, to anyone whose Christianity is something more than form, to
have Christian servants round about you.

Housekeeping in India is either difficult or very easy, according to
the view that is taken of the moral responsibility of a householder.
If you feel it a duty, or if poverty compels you, to endeavour not to
allow yourself to be cheated, the process of housekeeping will become
a contest between you and your heathen servants in which, in spite of
your vigilance, you will be continually worsted. If, on the other
hand, you are reconciled not to worry much about prices, and if you do
not grudge the traditional gifts of certain seasons, you can obtain
what is probably the most efficient and devoted service in the world.
Your head-servant will take the entire responsibility of your
establishment. When he has learnt what your wishes are, he will see
that his underlings carry them out to the letter. Meals will be
admirably served, and you will be waited on noiselessly and
graciously. Your own unpunctuality, your unreasonableness, the sudden
arrival of unexpected guests, none of these things will disturb the
admirable serenity of your Hindu or Mohammedan Indian butler. And
whatever the emergency, you will find him equal to the occasion. But
in return for this, you must not grumble because at every turn, and in
every transaction, he is privately supplementing his official income.

Those who employ Christian servants would do well to remember that
they ought to take care to pay them somewhat in excess of the small
wages which will satisfy a Hindu. Otherwise they will find it
difficult to live, and may be tempted to practise the same methods by
which the heathen servant probably doubles his receipts.

There is a popular Hindu festival called the _Dasara_, and this is one
of the days when stable-servants expect to be tipped, unless they know
that their master disapproves of Hindu ceremonies. On that day hor