the grounds round your house a compound, though it's no good asking why because nobody will be able to tell you.
My spirits sank still lower as I looked out into that compound. It was a pitch-dark night, and it didn't cheer me up to think that not even a bolt lay between me and that nasty, lonely, dark place outside. I pulled the jhilmil to, and sat down and looked at it sadly. That eighteenth boltless door was just typical of India all through. Everything may be very nice, but there's always something 'not just quite' about it that mars the general effect. What possible use is there in seventeen doors that lock if the eighteenth one is destitute of bolts and bars? One might just as well have saved the cost of the seventeen bolts on all the others. It's just the same all through. You see a splendid carriage and pair, real good horses, gorgeous harness, men in wonderful liveries, a regular smart turn-out, yet dangling underneath you'll probably find a bundle of grass or that little bit of string again personified in a coil of rope. It's the most comically incongruous sight you've ever seen. But it's a pity, because it spoils the general effect. You couldn't possibly do it anywhere except in India. When Berengaria borrows a Rajah's carriage that ugly coil of rope is always swinging somewhere underneath or in the rear, and I can't get over it. I enjoy the drive and the smartness of the equipage very much, but I'm always subconscious of that incongruous coil of rope. I once asked Berengaria why they carried
