ong our rugs and bundles, in the hopeless helplessness of
disembarkation. He approached us respectfully, and, bowing with extended
hands and a deferential air, asked, in excellent English, 'May I venture
to inquire which of you two ladies is Miss Lois Cayley?'

'_I_ am,' I replied, my breath taken away by this unexpected greeting.
'May I venture to inquire in return how you came to know I was arriving
by this steamer?'

[Illustration: I AM THE MAHARAJAH OF MOOZUFFERNUGGAR.]

He held out his hand, with a courteous inclination. 'I am the Maharajah
of Moozuffernuggar,' he answered in an impressive tone, as if everybody
knew of the Maharajah of Moozuffernuggar as familiarly as they knew of
the Duke of Cambridge. 'Moozuffernuggar in Rajputana--_not_ the one in
the Doab. You must have heard my name from Mr. Harold Tillington.'

I had not; but I dissembled, so as to salve his pride. 'Mr. Tillington's
friends are _our_ friends,' I answered, sententiously.

'And Mr. Tillington's friends are _my_ friends,' the Maharajah retorted,
with a low bow to Elsie. 'This is no doubt, Miss Petheridge. I have
heard of your expected arrival, as you will guess, from Tillington. He
and I were at Oxford together; I am a Merton man. It was Tillington who
first taught me all I know of cricket. He took me to stop at his
father's place in Dumfriesshire. I owe much to his friendship; and when
he wrote me that friends of his were arriving by the _Jumna_, why, I
made haste to run down to Bombay to greet them.'

The episode was one of those topsy-turvy mixtures of all places and
ages which only this jumbled century of ours has witnessed; it impressed
me deeply. Here was this Indian prince, a feudal Rajput chief, living
practically among his vassals in the Middle Ages when at home in India;
yet he said 'I am a Merton man,' as Harold himself might have said it;
and he talked about cricket as naturally as Lord Southminster talked
about the noble quadruped. The oddest part of it all was, we alone felt
the incongruity; to the Maharajah, the change from Moozuffernuggar to
Oxford and from Oxford back again to Moozuffernuggar seemed perfectly
natural. They were but two alternative phases in a modern Indian
gentleman's education and experience.

Still, what were we to do with him? If Harold had presented me with a
white elephant I could hardly have been more embarrassed than I was at
the apparition of this urbane and magnificent Hindoo prince. He was
young