The committee sent me word of the Collector Sahib’s presence, so I went out to show him due respect as a loyal zemindar. The committee had a reason for my coming. The collector’s servants and camp followers had raided the gardens, fields and fruit trees, taking what they chose and refusing payment, as usual with them. Besides, some of them had nets and were catching loads of fish of all sizes. To excuse themselves they said they were the Barra Sahib’s servants, and wherever they went they took what they wanted and paid nothing. This was the truth, but did not make their robbery and insolence any more palatable to my people. On hearing this I told the committee to come with me to call on the sahib. I had not met him, as he was a new arrival in the station, and had not called on me for the probable reason that the cantonment magistrate—somewhat of a cad, always in debt to his servants and shop-keepers, having a lot of gambling IOU’s against him in the club at the end of every month—had dropped my name from the calling list which was in his charge, giving as a reason to some one that newcomers might not care to become acquainted with Eurasians. But then he was the second generation from a London tailor, and as some society expert has observed that it takes seven generations to make a gentleman, he was only two-sevenths of one, so no matter. The Collector received me with great kindness. He told me of his public reception, how surprised and pleased he was, that the village was a paradise compared with others, that it was the model village of all he had ever seen. When about to take leave, I told him that the committee were outside the tent. We went out. They hesitated, expecting that I would talk for them, but I preferred to let them tell their own story. Their leader began by saying how glad their hearts had been made by his honor coming to them, that they were all his servants, that everything in the village was his, and they hoped his highness would not be offended if they said that some worthless fellows in his honor’s camp had gone into the fields and taken vegetables and fruit and had caught fish from the tank with nets which was against the rule, and given nothing in payment except gali, and threatened if they were reported to take much more. He told this with great effect in his own eloquent village language which would lose all its force by translation.