Tangri having completed his third year's service, and his commanding officer having sent in the confidential report we saw him striving with in the first chapter, a bird was not long in coming home to roost. The report was sent off, and in due course reached authority. Authority read it, smiled, and said, "This is our man. We'll try him with another." A little later Colonel Burroughs learnt that he might shortly expect 2nd Lieutenant Gupta Sen, son of an eminent Bengali Pleader, to join his regiment.

with trenchant and convincing reasons against Mr G. Sen; but on reading it over he realised all too quickly that every argument against Sen the undesirable was based on Tangri the utterly useless. His confidential reports on the latter rose up and smote him.

in

Like a wise man he dropped the pen and destroyed a stultifying document. What he could not write he could say. He decided on a personal interview with authority, and started without delay. Now Burroughs was one of those rather foolish regimental officers who avoid anything tabs or brass hats. He was going to interview X., but he did not know him or what sort of fellow he was; and he was wondering how he should approach him-whether through the bowels and an appeal to X.'s softer nature, or whether bluffing or bullying would be better. The key to the situation was, however, handed to him when Y. chanced

to enter the railway carriage in which Burroughs was travelling. Y. was an old friend and contemporary, and was soon in possession of the details of the trouble.

Y. produced a letter from a breast pocket, and spoke as follows:

You tell me you are going to interview X., who deals with these Indian appointments. Now I dislike him. He calls me by my Christian name and paws me when we meet, which, thank heaven, is seldom. I dislike him because he does what only the filthiest and most degraded type of soldier does he panders to politicians. He dislikes this Army Indianisation business as much as any one. In his present job, of course, he is bound to give it official favour, but he does so both in his private and his official capacity with far too much zest for an honest man. Now his wife's a cousin of mine, and their boy is my godson. He's at Wellington College, and this letter is from him. He writes: 'Dad says I'm no longer to go into the Indian Army like he did. He says it's not good enough now. He won't have me serving under an Indian.' Take the letter. I think it may be useful to you. Make no secret as to who gave it you. When I dislike a man, I like the feeling to be reciprocated. Next time perhaps he won't paw me."

On the following day the suave panderer to politicians received Colonel Burroughs with

great bonhomie and plenty of soft soap. Thus, "We have been delighted to note how well this great enterprise has gone in your regiment. Of course we selected you and a few other commanding officers as men of breadth and vision, who would do their utmost by these newly commissioned Indians," and so on. It was with difficulty that Burroughs was able to interrupt the flow of soap-suds. At last he was able to say—

"I see you are heart and soul for this Indianisation business.'

66

My dear fellow," came the reply, "we are! we are!"

"AS

matter of fact, I meant you yourself personally and in your private capacity," said Burroughs.

'But, my dear old man," rejoined X., "of course I am -none more so."

have followed his father, but the Indian Army being no longer good enough, the boy is now to go into a British regiment."

X. looked sharply at Burroughs.

"You seem to take great interest in the boy," he remarked with less bonhomie and more suspicion.

"As a matter of fact, none whatever except so far as the interests of my regiment are affected," said Burroughs. "I have a letter from your boy here Y. gave it me yesterday. I believe he's a friend of yours. He said he thought it might help me. I think it will. Of course, your boy may have taken you up wrong; but he writes clearly enough, and says you don't like these new Indian commissions, and that he is no longer for the Indian Army."

You're appointing, or are about to appoint, another Indian to my regiment. I want you to favour some other corps this time. What about it?"

X. began

"We don't like as a rule reviewing or altering our decisions, but—————”

“Glad you take it like that,” interjected Burroughs. "Of course, I don't expect you to cry stinking fish to an innovation you think a little premature-and if you like to go to the other extreme and call it fresh Loch Fyne herrings— that's your look-out. Now about Gupta Sen?"

"We shall see what can be done about it," replied X. sourly.

"Better, I think," said Burroughs, "make one bite of that cherry and give me your assurance that he's not to come to me. And you'll agree with me, I know, these things are always best in writing. So if you wouldn't mind, perhaps you'd write the same sort of letter cancelling the appointment as you sent me telling me you had made it. Thanks awfully. No, I don't mind waiting a bit."

Tangri entered his fourth year of service, and it was to be his last. He had done a lot of thinking during the past few months, and had realised that his brother subalterns, although no better equipped with brains than he was, possessed some quality that he lacked. He did not know that this was character. He did not understand that character does not figure in the curriculum of any Indian school or university whatever, or that it is the very bones and blood of British public school training. He put it all down to his brother officers being sahibs. It was easy for them to be impartial. No one came from their village or spoke their language or was their co-religionist. As sahibs, therefore, they were obeyed without question, accepted obedience as a matter of course, and were very angry at any remissness. They weren't hampered with wives about three centuries out of step with them as regards culture and outlook, and their wives, such of them as possessed them, could go anywhere and do anything and be just as independent as their husbands. All this he realised, and in a dull way felt the hardship of it. As a failure he was wounded in his feelings. But what perturbed him more was the prospect of telling his father. The latter, during his visit of inspection, had not

been shown the seamy side of things. Nor had he observed anything wrong. He had gone away rejoicing in a successful enterprise. His tone with his friend the Rissaldar-major had been rather lofty since. There was something of a crow in it. He had written to his son about this-his son, the bearer of a King's commission, the Rissaldar- major's being held from the Viceroy.

Tangri felt that he would have to prick this bubble, and that there might be a nasty explosion-not loud, but very nasty. In his dilemma he was driven to do what he had never done before-consult his wife. He was glad he did so. For this surprising lady, who beyond the domestic orbit held scarce two ideas in her head, now produced one, and it was a serviceable one. She had observed through the eyeholes of her burka, or the chinks in her closely shuttered window,

it matters not-at her home in her own village a certain stout captain sahib, who served not in the Sirkar's army but in that of the great feudatory prince in whose domains her village lay. Such forces, it may be mentioned, are maintained by Indian princes and great territorial magnates, and they are officered from colonel downwards entirely by Indians.

Now why, argued Fatma Bibi, should her lord continue to serve and grow thin in the