master. Drop the Bengal Government altogether. Even Darjiling is a little, out-of-the-way hole. was there once, and the rents were extortionate. Assert yourself. Get the Government of India to take you over. Try to get on the Frontier, where every man has a grand chance if he can trust himself. Go somewhere! Do something! You have twice the wits and three times the presence of the men up here, and, and"—Mrs. Hauksbee paused for breath; then continued—"and in any way you look at it, you ought to. You who could go so far!"
"I don't know," said Yeere, rather taken aback by the unexpected eloquence. "I haven't such a good opinion of myself."
It was not strictly Platonic, but it was Policy. Mrs. Hauksbee laid her hand lightly upon the ungloved paw that rested on the turned-back 'rickshaw hood, and looking the man full in the face, said tenderly, almost too tenderly: "I believe in you if you mistrust yourself. Is that enough, my friend?"
"It is enough," answered Otis very solemnly.
He was silent for a long time, redreaming the dreams that he had dreamed eight years ago, but through them all ran, as sheet-lightning through golden cloud, the light of Mrs. Hauksbee's violet eyes.
Curious and impenetrable are the mazes of Simla life—the only existence in this desolate land worth the living. Gradually it went abroad among men and women, in the pauses between dance, play and Gymkhana, that Otis Yeere, the man with the newly-lit light of self-confidence in his eyes, had "done something decent" in the wilds whence he came. He had brought an erring Municipality to reason, appropriated the funds on his own responsibility and saved the lives of hundreds. He knew more about the Gullals than any living man. Had a vast knowledge of the aboriginal tribes; was, in spite of his juniority, the greatest authority on the aboriginal Gullals. No one quite knew who or what the
