“That’s because you’re seeing it all in a lump for the first time, and it’s not nice that way. Makes a man jump rather, doesn’t it? But, recollect, you’ve _asked_ for the worst places, and you can’t complain.” “Who’s complaining? Bring on your atrocities. Isn’t that a European woman at that door?” “Yes. Mrs. D----, widow of a soldier, mother of seven children.” “Nine, if you please, and good-evening to you,” shrills Mrs. D----, leaning against the doorpost, her arms folded on her bosom. She is a rather pretty, slightly-made Eurasian, and whatever shame she may have owned she has long since cast behind her. A shapeless Burmo-native trot, with high cheek-bones and mouth like a shark, calls Mrs. D---- “Mem-Sahib.” The word jars unspeakably. Her life is a matter between herself and her Maker, but in that she--the widow of a soldier of the Queen--has stooped to this common foulness in the face of the city, she has offended against the white race. The Police fail to fall in with this righteous indignation. More--they laugh at it out of the wealth of their unholy knowledge. “You’re from up-country, and of course you don’t understand. There are any amount of that lot in the city.” Then the secret of the insolence of Calcutta is made plain. Small wonder the natives fail to respect the Sahib, seeing what they see and knowing what they know. In the good old days, the honorable the directors deported him or her who misbehaved grossly, and the white man preserved his _izzat_. He may have been a ruffian, but he was a ruffian on a large scale. He did not sink in the presence of the people. The natives are quite right to take the wall of the Sahib who has been at great pains to prove that he is of the same flesh and blood. All this time Mrs. D---- stands on the threshold of her room and looks upon the men with unabashed eyes. If the spirit of that English soldier, who married her long ago by the forms of the English Church, be now flitting bat-wise above the roofs, how singularly pleased and proud it must be! Mrs. D---- is a lady with a story. She is not averse to telling it. “What was--ahem--the case in which you were--er--hmn--concerned, Mrs. D----?” “They said I’d poisoned my husband by putting something into his drinking-water.” This is interesting. How much modesty _has_ this creature? Let us see. “And--ah--_did_ you?” “‘Twasn’t proved,” says Mrs. D---- with a laugh, a pleasant, lady-like laugh that does infinite credit to her education and upbringing. Worthy Mrs. D----! It would pay a novelist--a French one let us say--to pick you out of the stews and make you talk.