for the present to myself.

"'Explains, I mean, why I did not see the ghost of the murdered woman,'
I concluded.

"'Precisely,' said Sir Henry, 'and why, if you had seen anything, it
would have had value, inasmuch as it could not have been caused by the
imagination working upon a story you already knew.'"

FOOTNOTE:

[I] Taken by permission from "The Listener and Other Stories,"--E.P.
Dutton & Co.

THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

"May no ill dreams disturb my rest,
Nor Powers of Darkness me molest."
--_Evening Hymn._

One of the few advantages that India has over England is a certain great
Knowability. After five years' service a man is directly or indirectly
acquainted with the two or three hundred Civilians in his Province, all
the Messes of ten or twelve Regiments and Batteries, and some fifteen
hundred other people of the non-official castes. In ten years his
knowledge should be doubled, and at the end of twenty he knows, or knows
something about, almost every Englishman in the Empire, and may travel
anywhere and everywhere without paying hotel-bills.

Globe-trotters who expect entertainment as a right, have, even within my
memory, blunted this open-heartedness, but, none the less, to-day if you
belong to the Inner Circle and are neither a bear nor a black sheep all
houses are open to you and our small world is very kind and helpful.

Rickett of Kamartha stayed with Polder of Kumaon, some fifteen years
ago. He meant to stay two nights only, but was knocked down by rheumatic
fever, and for six weeks disorganized Polder's establishment, stopped
Polder's work, and nearly died in Polder's bed-room. Polder behaves as
though he had been placed under eternal obligation by Rickett, and
yearly sends the little Ricketts a box of presents and toys. It is the
same everywhere. The men who do not take the trouble to conceal from you
their opinion that you are an incompetent ass, and the women who blacken
your character and misunderstand your wife's amusements, will work
themselves to the bone in your behalf if you fall sick or into serious
trouble.

Heatherlegh, the Doctor, kept, in addition to his regular practice, a
hospital on his private account--an arrangement of loose-boxes for
Incurables, his friends called it--but it was really a sort of
fitting-up shed for craft that had been damaged by stress of weather.
The weather in India is often sultry,