the Empire, and may travel anywhere and everywhere without
paying hotel-bills.

Globe-trotters who expect entertainment as a right, have, even
within my memory, blunted this open-heartedness, but none the
less to-day, if you belong to the Inner Circle and are neither a Bear
nor a Black Sheep, all houses are open to you, and our small world
is very, very kind and helpful.

Rickett of Kamartha stayed with Polder of Kumaon some fifteen
years ago. He meant to stay two nights, but was knocked down by
rheumatic fever, and for six weeks disorganized Polder's
establishment, stopped Polder's work, and nearly died in Polder's
bedroom. Polder behaves as though he had been placed under
eternal obligation by Rickett, and yearly sends the little Ricketts a
box of presents and toys. It is the same everywhere. The men who
do not take the trouble to conceal from you their opinion that you
are an incompetent ass, and the women who blacken your
character and misunderstand your wife's amusements, will work
themselves to the bone in your behalf if you fall sick or into
serious trouble.

Heatherlegh, the Doctor, kept, in addition to his regular practice, a
hospital on his private account--an arrangement of loose boxes for
Incurables, his friend called it--but it was really a sort of fitting-up
shed for craft that had been damaged by stress of weather. The
weather in India is often sultry, and since the tale of bricks is
always a fixed quantity, and the only liberty allowed is permission
to work overtime and get no thanks, men occasionally break down
and become as mixed as the metaphors in this sentence.