there will be scenes and panics. They live too well here, and have too much to make life worth clinging to--clubs, and shop fronts, and gas, and theatres, and so forth--things that they affect to despise, and whereon and whereby they live like leeches. But I have written enough. It doesn't exhaust the subject; but you won't be grateful for other epistles. De Vitre of the Poona Irregular Moguls will have it that they are a tiddy-iddy people. He says that all their visible use is to produce loans for the colonies and men to be used up in developing India. I honestly believe that the average Englishman would faint if you told him it was lawful to use up human life for any purpose whatever. He believes that it has to be developed and made beautiful for the possessor, and in that belief talkatively perpetrates cruelties that would make Torquemada jump in his grave. Go to Alipur if you want to see. I am off to foreign parts--forty miles away--to catch fish for my friend the char-cat; also to shoot a little bird if I have luck. Yours, Rudyard Kipling. II To Captain J. McHail, 151st (Kumharsen) N.I., _Hakaiti via Tharanda_. Captain Sahib Bahadur! The last _Pi_ gives me news of your step, and I'm more pleased about it than many. You've been "cavalry quick" in your promotion. Eight years and your company! Allahu! But it must have been that long, lean horse-head of yours that looks so wise and says so little that has imposed upon the authorities. My best congratulations. Let out your belt two holes, and be happy, as I am not. Did I tell you in my last about going to Woking in search of a grave? The dust and the grime and the grey and the sausage-shop told on my spirits to such an extent that I solemnly took a train and went grave-hunting through the Necropolis--locally called the Necrapolis. I wanted an eligible, entirely detached site in a commanding position--six by three and bricked throughout. I found it, but the only drawback was that I must go back to town to the head office to buy it. One doesn't go to town to haggle for tomb-space, so I deferred the matter and went fishing. All the same, there are very nice graves at Woking, and I shall keep my eye on one of 'em.