ass I have never found a trace, nor do I wish to
do. My sole motive in giving this to be published is the hope that some
one may possibly identify, from the details and the inventory which I
have given above, the corpse of the man in the olive-green hunting-suit.

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING

"Brother to a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he be found worthy."

The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not
easy to follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again under
circumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether the other
was worthy. I have still to be brother to a Prince, though I once came
near to kinship with what might have been a veritable King, and was
promised the reversion of a Kingdom--army, law-courts, revenue, and
policy all complete. But, to-day, I greatly fear that my King is dead,
and if I want a crown I must go hunt it for myself.

The beginning of everything was in a railway-train upon the road to Mhow
from Ajmir. There had been a Deficit in the Budget, which necessitated
travelling, not Second-class, which is only half as dear as First-Class,
but by Intermediate, which is very awful indeed. There are no cushions
in the Intermediate class, and the population are either Intermediate,
which is Eurasian, or native, which for a long night journey is nasty,
or Loafer, which is amusing though intoxicated. Intermediates do not buy
from refreshment-rooms. They carry their food in bundles and pots, and
buy sweets from the native sweetmeat-sellers, and drink the roadside
water. This is why in hot weather Intermediates are taken out of the
carriages dead, and in all weathers are most properly looked down upon.

My particular Intermediate happened to be empty till I reached
Nasirabad, when the big black-browed gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered,
and, following the custom of Intermediates, passed the time of day. He
was a wanderer and a vagabond like myself, but with an educated
taste for whisky. He told tales of things he had seen and done, of
out-of-the-way corners of the Empire into which he had penetrated, and
of adventures in which he risked his life for a few days' food.

"If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than
the crows where they'd get their next day's rations, it isn't seventy
millions of revenue the land would be paying--it's seven hundred
millions," said he; and as I looked at his mouth and chin I was disposed
to agree with