and the hereditary Minister were most anxious to relieve me of the
most embarrassing details of government, so I handed them a copy of
the Ten Commandments, underlining two that I thought might be useful,
and put them in charge. They were old-fashioned in their methods--like
Sir Billy Jones; but the result was admirable. In two years the
revenue was reduced from ten to two lakhs of rupees, and the
expenditure proportionately increased. A bridge, a summer-house, and a
school were built; and I wrote the longest "Administration Report"
that has ever issued from the Zulmabad Residency. When I left money
was so cheap and lightly regarded that I sold my old buggy horse for
two thousand rupees to grandmamma, with many mutual expressions of
good-will--through a curtain--and I have not been paid to this day.
But since then the horse-market has been ruined in the native states
by these imperial _mélas_[J] and durbars. A poor Political has no
chance against these Government of India people, who come down with
strings of three-legged horses, and--no, I won't say they sell them to
the chiefs--I should be having a commission of my _khidmatgars_[K]
sitting upon me, like poor Har Sahai, who was beaten by Mr. Saunders,
and Malhar Rao Gaikwar, who fancied his Resident was going to poison
him.

I like to see a Political up at Simla wooing that hoyden Promotion in
her own sequestered bower. It is good to see Hercules toiling at the
feet of Omphale. It is good to see Pistol fed upon leeks by
Under-Secretaries and women. How simple he is! How boyish he can be,
and yet how intense! He will play leap frog at Annandale; he will
paddle about in the stream below the water-falls without shoes and
stockings; but if you allude in the most distant way to rajas or
durbars, he lets down his face a couple of holes and talks like a
weather prophet. He will be so interesting that you can hardly bear