nual marriage-market, were
beginning to resign themselves to a return to England--unless, of
course, they had succeeded in 'catching.' So I realised that I must
hurry on to Delhi and Agra, if I was not to be intercepted by the
intolerable summer.

When we started from Moozuffernuggar for Delhi and the East, Lord
Southminster was starting for Bombay and Europe. This surprised me not a
little, for he had confided to my unsympathetic ear a few nights
earlier, in the Maharajah's billiard-room, that he was 'stony broke,'
and must wait at Moozuffernuggar for lack of funds 'till the oof-bird
laid' at his banker's in England. His conversation enlarged my
vocabulary, at any rate.

'So you've managed to get away?' I exclaimed, as he dawdled up to me at
the hot and dusty station.

'Yaas,' he drawled, fixing his eye-glass, and lighting a cigarette.
'I've--p'f--managed to get away. Maharaj seems to have thought--p'f--it
would be cheepah in the end to pay me out than to keep me.'

'You don't mean to say he offered to lend you money?' I cried.

'No; not exactly that: _I_ offahed to borrow it.'

'From the man you call a nigger?'

His smile spread broader over his face than ever. 'Well, we borrow from
the Jews, yah know,' he said pleasantly, 'so why the jooce shouldn't we
borrow from the heathen also? Spoiling the Egyptians, don't yah
see?--the same as we used to read about in the Scripchah when we were
innocent kiddies. Like marriage, quite. You borrow in haste--and repay
at leisure.'

He strolled off and took his seat. I was glad to get rid of him at the
main line junction.

In accordance with my usual merciful custom, I spare you the details of
our visit to Agra, Muttra, Benares. At Calcutta, Elsie left me. Her
health was now quite restored, dear little soul-- I felt I had done that
one good thing in life if no other--and she could no longer withstand
the higher mathematics, which were beckoning her to London with
invisible fingers. For myself, having so far accomplished my original
design of going round the world with twopence in my pocket, I could not
bear to draw back at half the circuit; and Mr. Elworthy having willingly
consented to my return by Singapore and Yokohama, I set out alone on my
homeward journey.

[Illustration: HE WROTE, I EXPECT YOU TO COME BACK TO ENGLAND AND MARRY
ME.]

Harold wrote me from London that all was going well. He had found the
will which I drew up at Florence in his uncle's escritoire,