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When I returned to Simla I told Mrs. Awksby of my discoveries, and spoke of the armchair. I fancied she colored slightly, but quickly recovered. "Dear old Sparkley," she said sweetly; "he WAS a champion liar!" I had not seen Mulledwiney for several days. Knowing the man this looked bad. So I dropped in on the Colonel. I found him in deep thought.
When a man is a Commissioner and a bachelor and has the right of wearing open-work jam-tart jewels in gold and enamel on his clothes, and of going through a door before every one except a Member of Council, a Lieutenant-Governor, or a Viceroy, he is worth marrying. At least, that is what ladies say. There was a Commissioner in Simla, in those days, who was, and wore, and did, all I have said.
There was a loud outcry of horror and surprise sweeping on now from the social circles of Delhi to the clubs of Lucknow, Cawnpore, Allahabad, Benares, and Patna to Calcutta. In a day or two, men from Lahore to Hyderabad, from Bombay to Nagpore and Madras, and in all the clubs from Calcutta to Simla, had paused over their brandy pawnee to murmur, "Well!
He was quick and quicker to learn Bold and bolder to dare: He danced the dread Kloo-Kwallie Dance To tickle Itswoot the Bear! Oregon Legend Kim flung himself whole-heartedly upon the next turn of the wheel. He would be a Sahib again for a while. In that idea, so soon as he had reached the broad road under Simla Town Hall, he cast about for one to impress.
Although absolutely necessary for their health, and that of their families, it is rather expensive for government employes, or civil servants, as they are called in India, to keep up two establishments, one in Simla and one in Calcutta. But they get the benefit of the stimulating atmosphere of the hills and escape the perpetual Turkish bath that is called summer in Calcutta.
Maybe the Members of Council began it; but, finally, all Simla agreed that there was "too much Wonder, and too little Viceroy," in that regime. Wonder was always quoting "His Excellency." It was "His Excellency this," "His Excellency that," "In the opinion of His Excellency," and so on. The Viceroy smiled; but he did not heed.
That is what I said to Beatrice when I felt that I must revisit the scene of my girlish days. 'We must go somewhere where there is military. Of course, we might have gone to Simla I have influential friends there, you know but I wanted my girl to see a real bit of genuine India, and Simla is so modern. Really a great pity, I think.
Simla occasionally is convulsed by scandals, although dispassionate inquiry invariably proves that there is nothing in them. The hot blood of the quick and fervid Punjaub casual observers have called the Punjaub stupid, but the remark applies only to its officials is apt to stir the current of life at Murree.
During one viceroyalty of happy memory half a dozen clever and amusing men and women came together in Simla it was a mere fortuitous occurrence, aided by a joyous ruler who hated being bored as none before or ever since have hated it and the place has lived socially upon the reputation of that meteoric term ever since.
It is a far cry from Simla to Chini, and farther from Shamlegh to Shamlegh-midden. 'So be it, but I carry the big kilta. The basket with the red top that the Sahibs pack themselves every morning. 'Thus it is proved, said the Shamlegh man adroitly, 'that they are Sahibs of no account.
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