Page:O Douglas - Olivia in India.djvu/183

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE SUNBURNED EARTH
171

come into your scheme." I took the two great clucking things and vainly tried to thrust their feet—or is it claws hens have?—into a tiny corner, and they had just wrecked all my efforts when I woke!


I have taken some photographs which I shall send you. The delightful babu buttoned tightly into the frock-coat is a clerk of Mr. Royle's, called a "Sita-Ram—two-o'clock." The frock-coat was a legacy from a departing Collector, and he is immensely proud of it. He is a great delight to me, and says he will never cease to pray for my internal welfare! Talking of babus, one wrote to Mr. Royle the other day about a pair of riding-breeches, and said, "I have your Honour's measurements, but will be glad to know if there is any improvement in the girth." Don't you think that was a very pretty way of asking if he had put on weight?

When I showed Autolycus and the chuprassis the photographs I had taken of them, the chuprassis said, "Atcha" (very good), but Autolycus shook his head violently, and when Boggley asked him what was wrong, he replied in an injured tone that it made him look quite black!