not much to hit
against, because the Government is more like a kind of general
Providence, directing an old--established state of things, than that
at home, where there's something new thrown down for us to fight about
every three months."

"You are probably, in your workshops, full of English mechanics, out of
the way of learning what the masses think."

"I don't know so much about that. There are four of us English foremen,
and between seven and eight hundred native fitters, smiths, carpenters,
painters, and such like."

"And they are full of the Congress, of course?"

"Never hear a word of it from year's end to year's end, and I speak the
talk too. But I wanted to ask how things are going on at home--old Tyler
and Brown and the rest?"

"We will speak of them presently, but your account of the indifference
of your men surprises me almost as much as your own. I fear you are a
backslider from the good old doctrine, Ed wards." Pagett spoke as one
who mourned the death of a near relative.

"Not a bit, Sir, but I should be if I took up with a parcel of baboos,
pleaders, and schoolboys, as never did a day's work in their lives, and
couldn't if they tried. And if you was to poll us English railway
men, mechanics, tradespeople, and the like of that all up and down the
country from Peshawur to Calcutta, you would find us mostly in a tale
together. And yet you know we're the same English you pay some respect
to at home at 'lection time, and we have the pull o' knowing something
about it."

"This is very curious, but you will let me come and see you, and perhaps
you will kindly show me the railway works, and we will talk things over
at leisure. And about all old friends and old times," added Pagett,
detecting with quick insight a look of disappointment in the mechanic's
face.

Nodding briefly to Orde, Edwards mounted his dog-cart and drove off.

"It's very disappointing," said the Member to Orde, who, while his
friend discoursed with Edwards, had been looking over a bundle of
sketches drawn on grey paper in purple ink, brought to him by a
Chuprassee.

"Don't let it trouble you, old chap," 'said Orde, sympathetically. "Look
here a moment, here are some sketches by the man who made the carved
wood screen you admired so much in the dining-room, and wanted a copy
of, and the artist himself is here too."

"A native?" said Pagett.

"Of course," was the reply, "Bishen Siagh is his name, and he has two
brothers to help