they had a distinct animus, at English institutions and character,
particularly as these appear in English society. I could not
believe, from the little I had seen of him, that his experience of
English society of any degree had been intimate; what he said had
the flavour of Radical Sunday papers. The only original element was
the feeling behind, which was plainly part of him; speculation
instantly clamoured as to how far this was purely temperamental and
how far the result of painful contact. He himself, he said, though
later of the Western States, had been born under the British flag of
British parents--though his mother was an Irishwoman she came from
loyal Ulster--and he repeated the statement as if it in some way
justified his attitude towards his fellow countrymen and excused his
truculence in the ear of a servant of the empire which he had the
humour to abuse. I heard him, I confess, with impatience, it was
all so shabby and shallow, but I heard him out, and I was rewarded;
he came for an illustration in the end to Simla. 'Look,' he said,
'at what they call their "Government House list"; and look at
Strobo, Signor Strobo. Isn't Strobo a man of intelligence, isn't he
a man of benevolence? He gave ten thousand rupees last week to the
famine fund. Is Strobo on Government House list? Is he ever
invited to dine with the Viceroy? No, because Strobo keeps a hotel!
Look at Rosario--where does Rosario come in? Nowhere, because
Rosario is a clerk, and a subordinate. Yet Rosario is a man of wide
reading and a very accomplished fellow!'

It became more or less necessary to argue then, and the commonplaces
with which I opposed him called forth a wealth of detail bearing
most picturesquely upon his stay among us. I began to think he had
never hated English rigidity and English snobbery until he came to
Simla, and that he and Strobo and Rosario had mingled their