ronger.
Now, you bad boy, listen to me.'

Simply and straightforwardly, as the 'rickshaw loitered round Jakko,
Mrs. Hauksbee preached to Otis Yeere the Great Gospel of Conceit,
illustrating it with living pictures encountered during their Sunday
afternoon stroll.

'Good gracious!' she ended with the personal argument, 'you'll apologise
next for being my attache--'

'Never!' said Otis Yeere. 'That's another thing altogether. I shall
always be.'

'What's coming?' thought Mrs. Hauksbee.

'Proud of that,' said Otis.

'Safe for the present,' she said to herself.

'But I'm afraid I have grown conceited. Like Jeshurun, you know. When
he waxed fat, then he kicked. It's the having no worry on one's mind and
the Hill air, I suppose.'

'Hill air, indeed!' said Mrs. Hauksbee to herself. 'He'd have been
hiding in the Club till the last day of his leave, if I hadn't
discovered him.' And aloud,

'Why shouldn't you be? You have every right to.'

'I! Why?'

'Oh, hundreds of things. I'm not going to waste this lovely afternoon
by explaining; but I know you have. What was that heap of manuscript you
showed me about the grammar of the aboriginal what's their names?'

'Gullals. A piece of nonsense. I've far too much work to do to bother
over Gullals now. You should see my District. Come down with your
husband some day and I'll show you round. Such a lovely place in the
Rains! A sheet of water with the railway-embankment and the snakes
sticking out, and, in the summer, green flies and green squash. The
people would die of fear if you shook a dogwhip at 'em. But they know
you're forbidden to do that, so they conspire to make your life a burden
to you. My District's worked by some man at Darjiling, on the strength
of a native pleader's false reports. Oh, it's a heavenly place!'

Otis Yeere laughed bitterly.

'There's not the least necessity that you should stay in it. Why do
you?'

'Because I must. How'm I to get out of it?'

'How! In a hundred and fifty ways. If there weren't so many people on
the road I'd like to box your ears. Ask, my dear boy, ask! Look! There
is young Hexarly with six years' service and half your talents. He asked
for what he wanted, and he got it. See, down by the Convent! There's
McArthurson, who has come to his present position by asking sheer,
downright asking after he had pushed himself out of the rank and file.
One man is as good as another in your service believe me. I've seen
Simla for more