* * * * * The next day Jones and I met Algy at the station. He had brought three servants, a pile of luggage, and looked quite beautiful as he stepped out on the platform, wearing a creaseless suit, Russia-leather boots, gloves, and a white gauze veil to keep off the dust. His handkerchief was suggestive of the most “up-to-date” delicate scent, as he passed it languidly over his forehead, and gave directions to have his late compartment cleared. As books, an ice-box, fruit, a fan, cushions, and a banjo, were handed out one by one, I gathered, from Jones’s expressive glance, that he granted that my cousin was a hopeless subject for the jungle. “Well, Perky,” he said, slapping me on the back, “I’ve got everything now--what are you waiting for?” “Your lady’s-maid,” I promptly answered, as I nodded at the banjo, pillows, and fan. “I like to be comfortable,” he confessed. “One may as well take one’s ease as not; it has an excellent and soothing effect on the temper.” But I noticed that he caught sight of Jones’s grin, and coloured deeply--whether with rage or shame, I could not guess. As I drove my guest up to our lines, I secretly marvelled as to what had brought him to our little Mofussil station, a two days’ railway journey through the flattest, ugliest country. He had been staying at Government House, Calcutta, at various splendid Residencies, and had had every opportunity of seeing India from the most commanding and luxurious point of view. Why had he sought _me_ out? Later on, as we sprawled in long chairs in my portico overlooking a sun-baked compound,--with a view chiefly consisting of the back of my neighbour’s stables, and Jones’s little brown bear, mowing and moping, under a scraggy mango tree,--I put the inevitable question: “Well, Algy, what do you think of India?” “Not much,” he answered. “It is not a bit like what I have expected: it is not as Eastern as Egypt. The scenery that I have seen consists of bushes, boulders, and terra-cotta plains. I don’t care about ruins and buildings; what I want to come at are the people and customs of the land--so far, it’s all England, not India: England at the sea-side, dressing, dancing, racing, flirting; clothes are thinner, manners are easier; but it’s England--England--England!” I did what I could for him. I took him to a garden-party, to call on the beauty of the station, to write his name in the general’s book, to mess, to a soldier’s sing-song; and still he was discontented. He had been faintly amused with our “pot” gardens and trotting bullocks; nevertheless, he continued to grumble in this style--