everything she can lay her hands on, but her husband's special subject
is philosophy, and last night he lent me a volume of Nietzsche.
I don't think I understood a single word, but between it and the
_moorghy-khana_ I had a bad night. I thought I had to make in five
minutes a new scheme of the Universe. All the odd-shaped pieces were
lying about like a picture-puzzle, and I feverishly tried to make them
fit, in the clumsy ineffective way one does things in dreams. Just as
I had it almost finished, Mrs. Royle came with a fowl in each hand and
said sternly, "These must come into your scheme." I took the two great
clucking things and vainly tried to thrust their feet--or is it claws
hens have?--into a tiny corner, and they had just wrecked all my
efforts when I woke!

I have taken some photographs which I shall send you. The delightful
babu buttoned tightly into the frock-coat is a clerk of Mr. Royle's,
called a "Sita-Ram--two-o'clock." The frock-coat was a legacy from a
departing Collector, and he is immensely proud of it. He is a great
delight to me, and says he will never cease to pray for my _internal_
welfare! Talking of babus, one wrote to Mr. Royle the other day
about a pair of riding-breeches, and said, "I have your Honour's
measurements, but will be glad to know if there is any improvement in
the girth." Don't you think that was a very pretty way of asking if he
had put on weight?

When I showed Autolycus and the _chuprassis_ the photographs I had
taken of them, the _chuprassis_ said, "_Atcha_" (very good), but
Autolycus shook his head violently, and when Boggley asked him what
was wrong, he replied in an injured tone that it made him look quite
black!