Our Chupprassees are the outward expression of our authority, and the
metre-gauge of our importance. By them the untutored mind of the
poor Indian is enabled to estimate the amount of reverence due to
each of us. This is the first purpose for which we are provided with
Chupprassees. The second is that they may deliver our commands, post
our letters, and escort the coming generation of Government servants
in their little perambulators. As the number required for the first
purpose usually far exceeds the number required for the second, there
is danger of Satan finding mischief for their idle hands to do, and
it becomes our duty to ward off this danger by occupying their hands
with something which is not mischief. This we do faithfully, and the
Chupprassee always reminds me of those tools we see advertised, which
combine hammer, pincers, turnscrew, chisel, foot-rule, hatchet, file,
toothpick, and life preserver. Mrs. Smart bewailed the bygone day
when every servant in her house was a Government Chupprassee except
the khansamah and a Portuguese ayah. I did not live in that day, but
in my own I have seen the Chupprassee discharge many functions. He
is an expert shikaree, sometimes a good tailor or barber, not a bad
cook at a pinch, a handy table boy, and, above all an unequalled
child's servant. There can be little doubt, it the truth were told,
that Little Henry's bearer was a Chupprassee. He also milks the cow,
waters the garden, catches butterflies, skins birds, blows eggs, and
runs after tennis balls. If you ask himself what his duties are, he
will reply promptly that it is his duty to wear the sircar's belt and
to "be present." And the camel is not more wonderfully fitted for
the desert than is Luxumon for the discharge of these solemn
responsibilities. He is like a carriage clock, able to sleep in any
conceivable position; and such is his mental constitution that, when
not sleeping, he is able to "be present" hour after hour without
feeling any desire for change of occupation. Ennui never troubles