I must plead guilty to two episodes where my sole desire was to avoid disappointment to others, and to prevent the reality falling short of the expectation. One was in India. Barrackpore, the Viceroy of India’s official country house, is justly celebrated for its beautiful gardens. In these gardens every description of tropical tree, shrub and flower grows luxuriantly. In a far-off corner there is a splendid group of fan-bananas, otherwise known as the “Traveller’s Palm.” Owing to the habit of growth of this tree, every drop of rain or dew that falls on its broad, fan-shaped crown of leaves is caught, and runs down the grooved stalks of the plant into receptacles that cunning Nature has fashioned just where the stalk meets the trunk. Even in the driest weather, these little natural tanks will, if gashed with a knife, yield nearly a tumblerful of pure sweet water, whence the popular name for the tree. A certain dull M.P., on his travels, had come down to Barrackpore for Sunday, and inquired eagerly whether there were any Travellers’ Trees either in the park or the gardens there, as he had heard of them, but had never yet seen one. We assured him that in the cool of the evening we would show him quite a thicket of Travellers’ Trees. It occurred to the Viceroy’s son and myself that it would be a pity should the globe-trotting M.P.’s expectations not be realized, after the long spell of drought we had had. So the two of us went off and carefully filled up the natural reservoirs of some six fan-bananas with fresh spring-water till they were brimful. Suddenly we had a simultaneous inspiration, and returning to the house we fetched two bottles of light claret, which we poured carefully into the natural cisterns of two more trees, which we marked. Late in the afternoon we conducted the M.P. to the grove of Travellers’ Trees, handed him a glass, and made him gash the stem of one of them with his pen knife. Thanks to our preparation it gushed water like one of the Trafalgar Square fountains, and the touring legislator was able to satisfy himself that it was good drinking-water. He had previously been making some inquiries about so-called “Palm-wine,” which is merely the fermented juice of the toddy-palm. We told him that some Travellers’ Palms produced this wine, and with a slight exercise of ingenuity we induced him to tap one of the trees we had doctored with claret. Naturally, a crimson liquid spouted into his glass in response to the thrust of his pen-knife, and after tasting it two or three times, he reluctantly admitted that its flavour was not unlike that of red wine. It ought to have been, considering that we had poured an entire bottle of good sound claret into that tree. The ex-M.P. possibly reflects now on the difficulties with which any attempts to introduce “Pussyfoot” legislation into India would be confronted in a land where some trees produce red wine spontaneously.