The amusement began with a gentleman of infinite erudition offering to publish my autobiography. I was to write a string of legends--he would publish them; and would I forward a cheque for five guineas "to cover incidental expenses?" To him I explained that I wanted five guinea cheques myself very much indeed, and that, emboldened by his letter, which gave me a very fair insight into his character, I was even then maturing _his_ autobiography, which I hoped to publish before long with illustrations, and would he forward a cheque for five guineas "to cover incidental expenses?" This brought me an eight-page compilation of contumely. He was grieved to find that he had been mistaken in my character, which he had believed was, at least, elevated. He begged me to remember that the first letter had been written in the strictest confidence, and that if I notated one tittle of the said "repository" he would unkennel the bloodhounds of the law and hunt me down. An autobiography on the lines that I had "so flippantly proposed" was libel without benefit of authorship, and I had better lend him two guineas--I.O.U. enclosed--to salve his lacerated feelings. I replied that I had his autobiography by me in manuscript, and would post it to his address, V.P.P., two guineas and one-half. He evidently knew nothing about the V.P.P., and the correspondence stopped. It is really very hard for an Anglo-Indian to get along in London. Besides, my autobiography is not a thing I should care to make public before extensive Bowdlerisation. These things, however, only led up to much worse. I dare not grin over them unless I step aside Eastward. I wrote stories, all about little pieces of India, carefully arranged and expurgated for the English public. Then various people began to write about them. One gentleman pointed out that I had taken "the well-worn themes of passion, love, despair and fate," and, thanks to the "singular fascination" of my style had "wrought them into new and glowing fabricks instinct with the eternal vitality of the East." For three days after this _chit_ I was almost too proud to speak to the housemaid with the fan-teeth (there is a story about her that I will tell another time). On the fourth day another gentleman made clear that that beautiful style was "tortuous, elaborated and inept," and it was only on account of the "newness of the subjects handled so crabbedly" that I "arrested the attention of the public for a day." Then I wept before the housemaid, and she called me a "real gentleman" because I gave her a shilling.