I have already treated of the Boy, and to devote another chapter to the Butler may seem like making a distinction where there is no difference; but there is in reality a radical difference between the two offices, which is this, that your Boy looks after you, whereas your Butler looks after the other servants, and you look after him; at least, I hope you do. From this it follows that the Boy flourishes only in the free atmosphere of bachelordom. If master marries, the Boy sometimes becomes a Butler, but I have generally seen that the change was fatal to him. He feels a share at first in master’s happiness on the auspicious occasion, and begins to fit on his new dignity. He provides himself with a more magnificent _cumberbund_, enlarges the border of gold thread on his puggree, and furbishes up his English that he may converse pleasantly with _mem saheb_. He orders about the other servants with a fuller voice than before, and when anyone calls for a chair, he no longer brings one himself, but commands the _hamal_ to do so. He feels supremely happy! Alas! before the _mem saheb_ has been many weeks in the house, the change of air begins to disagree with him—not with his body, but with his spirit, and though he may bear up against it for a time, he sooner or later asks leave to go to his country. His new mistress is nothing loth to be rid of him, nor master either, for even his countenance is changed; and so the Butler’s brief reign comes to an end, and he departs, deploring the unhappy match his master has made. Why could not so liberal and large-minded a _saheb_ remain unmarried, and continue to cast the shadow of his benevolence on those who were so happy as to eat his salt, instead of taking to himself a _madam_, under whom there is no peace night or day? As he sits with his unemployed friends seeking the consolation of the never-failing _beeree_, the ex-butler narrates her ladyship’s cantankerous ways, how she eternally fidgeted over a little harmless dust about the corners of the furniture, as if it was not the nature of dust to settle on furniture; how she would have window panes washed which had never been washed before; her meanness in inquiring about the consumption of oil and milk and firewood, matters which the _saheb_ had never stooped to look into; and her unworthy and insulting practice of locking up stores, and doling them out day by day, not to mention having the cow milked in her presence: all which made him so ashamed in the presence of the other servants that his life became bitter, and he was forced to ask for his _ruzza_.