is something more than
'one of the Government buildings on the Marina.' Let us remember that,
when it was enclosed within the walls that are now no more, it was the
home of Mohammedan potentates--sometimes a scene of gorgeous
festivity--sometimes a scene of desperate intrigue. In imagination we
may people the front garden with the gaily-uniformed Body-Guard of the
Carnatic sovereign, mounted on gaily-bridled steeds; and we may see
the Nawab himself coming magnificently down the front steps and
climbing into the silver howdah that is strapped on the back of a
kneeling elephant. A blast of oriental music, and the procession goes
on its way; and we may wonder at which of the tiled windows on the
upper floor the bright eyes of the Lalla Rookhs and the Nurmahals of
Chepauk are slily peeping at the spectacle. The vision vanishes. The
procession now is a procession of clerks to their homes when their
day's work is over; and the music is a ragtime selection by the Band
of the Madras Guards on the Marina, close by, with ayahs and children
around. We are in the twentieth century; but for a moment we have
lived in the past.

CHAPTER XI

GOVERNMENT HOUSE

In the early days of Madras all the employees of the Company, from the
Governor down to the most junior apprentice, lived in common. Their
bedrooms were in one and the same house, and they had their meals at
one and the same table. The house stood in the middle of the Fort, and
was the 'Factory'--a word which, as already explained, was used in
former times to mean a mercantile office, or, as Annandale in his
dictionary defines it, 'an establishment where factors in foreign
countries reside to transact business for their employers;' and the
Factory in Fort St. George was both an office and a home.

The community life, with the common table, was maintained for many
years, but in course of time, when the number of the employees had
greatly increased and some of the senior officials had wives and
children, one man and another were allowed to live in separate
quarters, within the precincts of the Fort; and eventually the common
table, like King Arthur's, was dissolved. Even then, however, and
right on until the beginning of the nineteenth century, the junior
employees had a common mess, and were under something like disciplined
control.

Like all the other buildings inside the Fort and within the walls of
White Town, the Factory--which was sometimes spoken of as 'The
Go