Mr. William Targett was delighted, and grasped his lordship’s hand, saying: “What, you here, Bill!” The quick reply came: “Yes, Bill; I’m here and so pleased at the invitation!” Wherever Lord William was, there it was lively, and this feast lasted three good hours, until he was obliged to keep what he referred to as an “austere appointment,” but at the end of his response to the toast of his health he took the whole room into his confidence with the concluding sentence: “Gentlemen, while you are thinking about your Christmas dinner, Targett and myself, with good luck, hope to be on the Calcutta racecourse; and I must tell you that this week I have, I think, purchased the winner of the Viceroy Cup--Metallic--for my old friend Orr-Ewing. Good night and good luck to you all.” One jubilant and well-known Umballian present shouted: “I am betting on the Viceroy’s Cup. Who wants to back his lordship’s tip?” He quickly found customers. The recounter of this story to me added that he risked a little bit, and was pleased to find on the following Christmas week that Metallic had won, and he therefore the better off by a “tenner.” It was kind of Lord William to find time to give his little Calcutta friend this pleasant surprise, considering that every one of his own friends and relations were clamouring for his time. But to return to 1876 in the East. At the close of the year, all official India, and a great deal of the unofficial, gathered at Delhi for the Proclamation of the Queen as Empress of India on January 1st, 1877. This entailed unceasing work on the Vice-regal staff, and all Government officials, both civil and military. The assemblage was to last fourteen days, and the heads of every departmental government in India were to be present, besides 14,000 troops, seventy-seven ruling princes and chiefs, and 68,000 people were invited and actually stayed in or around Delhi. Only those who have been in the vicinity of, or engaged in, the preparations for any big gathering in India can imagine for a moment the amount of galloping and fuss, the thraldom of official red tape and etiquette to be punctiliously observed, the number of contradictory orders, the hurt feelings and notes of explanation that are flying about; most of this galloping, between head-quarters and heads of departments, being carried out by the A.D.C.’s.