At a given signal the experienced police-officer fired the first shot, and his companions each fired off both barrels. The tiger rose unharmed and looked at them; but fortunately his wrath was directed to the noisy native villagers on the high bank and he rushed off towards them, scattering them like a flock of sheep. The young officials and their police-mentor returned to their homes sadder and wiser men, not likely to go out again on foot in quest of a tiger. The life of an assistant civilian at a sub-division is a life of toil and drudgery. But relief may come unexpectedly. One gloomy day, when his misfortunes seem at their worst, he finds a letter informing him that he has been appointed to act as under-secretary to the Government of the province. He can hardly understand or believe, at first, the good fortune that has come to him. He had begun to fancy that he was forgotten by all the world and by his friends. But when he tells the news to his native officials they are not slow to congratulate him. They tell him how under-secretaries are the men who eventually become lieutenant-governors. They almost worship him, and pray that their humble services may not be forgotten when he comes into his kingdom. But he must wait anxiously for a few days until his successor comes to relieve him, and then he rushes off eagerly to the capital, with hardly less change in his position and prospects than that of the butterfly who has emerged from his previous humble form. In the ordinary routine of the career of an Indian civilian in Bengal, he rises from an assistant to be a joint-magistrate, and he then becomes either a collector-magistrate or a judge of a district—and he never emerges from this quiet and hard-working career. If he is a judge he may, after twenty years or more, hope to obtain a seat in the High Court. If he is a collector-magistrate he may similarly hope to become a commissioner, and eventually to rise to be a member of the Board of Revenue. But outside the ordinary routine of appointments there are a certain number of offices which may be considered to be the special prizes of the service. To get into the secretariat is the very laudable desire of almost every young civilian. In the first place the pay of the under-secretary is very much larger than that of most of his contemporaries. But the pay is mere dross in comparison with the power and change of position which a secretariat appointment confers. His other brethren are the ordinary rank and file—but he has become an officer in command, and he issues his orders accordingly. It is much more pleasant to command than to obey, especially to those who have themselves been disciplined in the school of obedience. It is true that the under-secretary, in writing an official letter, informs his correspondent that he is directed by his honour the lieutenant-governor of the province to bid him do this or abstain from doing that; but the