"I loathe them and all Indian scents--even the scent of the garlands they bedeck one with at their _tomashas_ are odious to me, and I hasten to seek relief in a cheroot. But I confess I have a liking for my Kutchery on horseback. One can mow down a lot of cases, listen to scores of grievances in the open, under a good spreading tree. Everything comes before one on tour, you will find. In fact, we are reckoned a kind of terrestrial providence, expected to redress every grievance from a murrain among the cattle to a rival claim on a water-spout in the bazaar. Our territory includes many thousand square miles. It's no joke! But being obliged to itinerate is, after all, the saving grace of a civilian--it's a sort of vagabondage which I like--or did before the spring went out of me," added the Collector with a gloomy air. "Take my advice, Cheveril, choose the Revenue in preference to the Judicial side of the civilian's life. I can see it will suit you best. I believe our good little Judge there would grow several inches taller if he went on tour, and was not so devoted a slave to his cases and abstracts and his blue books. Much of that red-tape business will be your bitter portion for some time to come, young man, I warn you!" "My apprenticeship, no doubt! I expect these files are useful to beginners, though they seem to spell drudgery later on." "Very neatly put, they do spell drudgery with a vengeance! They ought not to be piled on the shoulders of Indian officials as they are. In fact, they're more often like the lash of the slave-driver than decent business. I wish some of our young reformers would organise a big bonfire of them--say simultaneously throughout the length and breadth of India--a sort of red-tape mutiny! But remember, some men live and move and have their being in those said files! They are poetry to Goldring, for instance, and to some of the younger men, I notice. I suspect it is the old sinners like me that chafe most against that side of the work." "Well, I'm curious to know what my experience of it all will prove," said Mark. "I don't think I'll ever find much poetry in files, though, after all, it depends on their subject-matter." "Yes, tragical enough tales are often compressed into blue books, and comedies too, for that matter. You'll find things go on very methodically in our Revenue Office down there, Cheveril. I've got some excellent Mahomedan clerks who do their part like clock-work. I confess I prefer them to Hindus. They are more manly for one thing, and one gets a shade nearer to some understanding of them than with the subtle though childish Hindu. But I am in the minority here. The doctor is always shaking his head over the Mussulman population in the town, declaring they have the upper hand. Well, I own as far as Moideen is concerned, he has the upper hand of me. There he is anxiously looking out for us, in case we are going to be late and his dinner should fall short of the perfection he aims at."