Mrs. Hauksbee as a matter
for general interest.

The knowledge of envy was a pleasant feeling to the man of no account.
It was intensified later in the day when a luncher at the Club said
spitefully, 'Well, for a debilitated Ditcher, Yeere, you are going it.
Hasn't any kind friend told you that she's the most dangerous woman in
Simla?'

Yeere chuckled and passed out. When, oh, when would his new clothes be
ready? He descended into the Mall to inquire; and Mrs. Hauksbee,
coming over the Church Ridge in her 'rickshaw, looked down upon him
approvingly. 'He's learning to carry himself as if he were a man,
instead of a piece of furniture, and,' she screwed up her eyes to see
the better through the sunlight 'he is a man when he holds himself like
that. O blessed Conceit, what should we be without you?'

With the new clothes came a new stock of self-confidence. Otis Yeere
discovered that he could enter a room without breaking into a gentle
perspiration could cross one, even to talk to Mrs. Hauksbee, as though
rooms were meant to be crossed. He was for the first time in nine years
proud of himself, and contented with his life, satisfied with his new
clothes, and rejoicing in the friendship of Mrs. Hauksbee.

'Conceit is what the poor fellow wants,' she said in confidence to Mrs.
Mallowe. 'I believe they must use Civilians to plough the fields with in
Lower Bengal. You see I have to begin from the very beginning haven't I?
But you'll admit, won't you, dear, that he is immensely improved since
I took him in hand. Only give me a little more time and he won't know
himself.'

Indeed, Yeere was rapidly beginning to forget what he had been. One of
his own rank and file put the matter brutally when he asked Yeere, in
reference to nothing, 'And who has been making you a Member of Council,
lately? You carry the side of half-a-dozen of 'em.'

'I I'm awf'ly sorry. I didn't mean it, you know,' said Yeere
apologetically.

'There'll be no holding you,' continued the old stager grimly. 'Climb
down, Otis climb down, and get all that beastly affectation knocked out
of you with fever! Three thousand a month wouldn't support it.'

Yeere repeated the incident to Mrs. Hauksbee. He had come to look upon
her as his Mother Confessor.

'And you apologised!' she said. 'Oh, shame! I hate a man who apologises.
Never apologise for what your friend called "side." Never! It's a man's
business to be insolent and overbearing until he meets with a st