One day the two ministers Thangal Major and Bularam Singh came to see me, accompanied by old Rooma Singh Major. They looked rather uneasy, and I suspected something was coming out. Presently Thangal rose and saluted me, and said, "The Maharajah has promoted us to be generals." I received the intelligence without any enthusiasm, feeling assured that the act had been dictated by a desire to give them a more high-sounding title than my military one, I being then only a lieut.-colonel. It was in fact a piece of self-assertion. Any one understanding Asiatics will know what I mean, and that I knew instinctively it was a move in the game against me which I ought to check. I coldly replied that of course the Maharajah would please himself, but that I loved old things, old names, and old faces, and that I had so many pleasant associations with the old titles that I could not bring myself to use the new ones, and should continue to call them by the dear old name of Major. I then shook hands with them most cordially and said good-bye, and they left rather crestfallen, where they had hoped and intended to be triumphant. I may as well tell the remainder of the story. Time after time was I begged to address my three friends as "General," but I was inexorable, and the titles almost fell into disuse among the Manipuris who had at first adopted them. Old Thangal once had a long talk about it, and I said plainly, "I give nothing for nothing: some day when you do something I shall address you as General." Years passed. I went on leave, and my locum tenens too good-naturedly gave in, and addressed them as General, and even induced the Chief Commissioner of the day to do likewise. When he wrote to me and told me of it, I was naturally not very pleased, and mentioned it to an old Indian friend, who said, "Well, you will have to do the same now that the Chief Commissioner has." However, I was not going to swerve from my word. I returned to Manipur, and one of the ministers met me on the boundary river. I again greeted him as "Major Sahib," and immediately the new titles again began to fall into disuse. I told the Chief Commissioner my views when I next met him, and he approved, as I said I could not alter my word.