rate, the
steaming, sweltering Station, the ill-kempt City, and the undisguised
insolence of the Municipality that babbled away the lives of men. Life
was cheap, however. The soil spawned humanity, as it bred frogs in
the Rains, and the gap of the sickness of one season was filled to
overflowing by the fecundity of the next. Otis was unfeignedly thankful
to lay down his work for a little while and escape from the seething,
whining, weakly hive, impotent to help itself, but strong in its power
to cripple, thwart, and annoy the sunkeneyed man who, by official irony,
was said to be 'in charge' of it.

'I knew there were women-dowdies in Bengal. They come up here sometimes.
But I didn't know that there were men-dowds, too.'

Then, for the first time, it occurred to Otis Yeere that his clothes
wore rather the mark of the ages. It will be seen that his friendship
with Mrs. Hauksbee had made great strides.

As that lady truthfully says, a man is never so happy as when he is
talking about himself. From Otis Yeere's lips Mrs. Hauksbee, before
long, learned everything that she wished to know about the subject
of her experiment: learned what manner of life he had led in what she
vaguely called 'those awful cholera districts'; learned, too, but this
knowledge came later, what manner of life he had purposed to lead and
what dreams he had dreamed in the year of grace '77, before the
reality had knocked the heart out of him. Very pleasant are the shady
bridle-paths round Prospect Hill for the telling of such confidences.

'Not yet,' said Mrs. Hauksbee to Mrs. Maliowe. 'Not yet. I must wait
until the man is properly dressed, at least. Great heavens, is it
possible that he doesn't know what an honour it is to be taken up by
Me!'

Mrs. Hauksbee did not reckon false modesty as one of her failings.

'Always with Mrs. Hauksbee!' murmured Mrs. Mallowe, with her sweetest
smile, to Otis. 'Oh you men, you men! Here are our Punjabis growling
because you've monopolised the nicest woman in Simla. They'll tear you
to pieces on the Mall, some day, Mr. Yeere.'

Mrs. Mallowe rattled downhill, having satisfied herself, by a glance
through the fringe of her sunshade, of the effect of her words.

The shot went home. Of a surety Otis Yeere was somebody in this
bewildering whirl of Simla had monopolised the nicest woman in it, and
the Punjabis were growling. The notion justified a mild glow of vanity.
He had never looked upon his acquaintance with