But

know the bison was on the move. apart from the shooting, what makes you disapprove of His Excellency?"

Vernon pondered awhile, wondering how to seize his opportunity and where to begin.

"Well," he said, "it is hardly for me to buck about Viceroys and that sort of person. And, anyway, if you are a pal of his you might repeat to him what is being said about him, and that would hardly do, you know."

"I shall not breathe a single word to him, though I happen to know that Lord Chilworth is always glad to be informed of what may be called unofficial opinion. He is not too proud to learn."

The Viceroy smiled a superior smile. "Isn't he?" answered Vernon, "I thought he was a vain kind of ass and had no end of an opinion of his own abilities; really, you know, he must have that or he would not do what any fool could tell him is wrong."

"Suppose," said Lord Chilworth, "that you quote an instance."

"Well, what about the way he invariably upholds a native against a European?"

"Oh, pardon me," rejoined the Viceroy, "only when the European is in the wrong."

"Not a bit of it. Look at the number of assault cases on Tommies. Every native knows that a Tommy's word will not be taken; a crowd of them get together and assault a couple of harmless Tommies who are walking in the bazaar or are out shooting. They give them a deuce of a time, and when the Tommies run them in, they swear that they beat them because a temple was desecrated or a woman assaulted."

"But you are entirely wrong," Lord Chilworth replied. "Why, only last week some men who assaulted a soldier received very heavy sentences indeed."

"Yes, that is quite true, but anybody could tell you, or rather could tell the Viceroy, that till recent times no native dared assault a Tommy, not because he was a Tommy, but simply because he was a Sahib. Sahibs were respected in those days; now, thanks to the Chilworth's predecessor, Wonersh, and to Chilworth himself, they are not respected any more. And I will tell you of another case that happened to a fellow in my own regiment, a chap called Bagley. His landlord, a native, came to dun old Bagley for his rent which was a week or so overdue. He actually had the cheek to walk into Bagley's rooms with his shoes on. Bagley ordered him out and the chap would not go, so Bagley threw him out. The native ran Bagley in for assault: he swore he had been half-killed, Bagley was put under arrest, by special direction of the Viceroy, who ordered that full particulars of the case should be sent to him."

"It was a most scandalous assault," broke in Lord Chilworth.

"Oh, you heard about it, did you? The lies that native told were simply beyond belief; no one but a really clever man could have believed them, and they were only beaten by the lies in the local native paper. The fellow was hardly touched, and you might have thought that he had been halfkilled. Well, Bagley was under arrest for three weeks; then he was tried by a civil court, and fined a hundred rupees, and finally, by the Viceroy's special orders, his application to be posted to the Remount Department was refused. I suppose Chilworth thought Bagley would beat the remounts. All that practically meant three punishments for Bagley, and all because he hove out of his room a native who had the cheek to come into it with his shoes on. You can imagine how the native papers talked about it, and the effect on the natives round

where we were quartered wasn't exactly good."

"But there were other aspects of the case," said Lord Chilworth; but Vernon broke in

Of

"The only other aspect was that the Viceroy absolutely ignored what Bagley had to say in extenuation. course he had committed an assault, and he said so, and explained why he had committed it. But it was no good, and he got it in the neck. To my mind there was neither justice nor policy, but, of course, Chilworth was quite pleased with himself, and he doubtless thought he had buttered up the natives to some tune. I only hope he was pleased."

"You are very candid in the expression of your ideas, young man," said the Viceroy; "do you think it is discreet to criticize your superiors in this way? It seems to me to be not only wanting in respect, but wanting in wisdom too."

"You asked me yourself to tell you why I thought Chilworth an ass, that is why I have done so. Of couse I should not have slanged a pal of yours if you had not invited me to do so. But it can hardly hurt Chilworth, for you promised not to repeat it to him. Not that it would do him any harm to hear for once what people think of him."

The Viceroy was surprised to find how much Vernon's words rankled; had someone told him that the criticisms of an irresponsible subaltern would sting him he would have scoffed at the notion. But, as it was, he was deeply wounded. Explanations were out of the question, and had they been possible would have been scarcely consistent with his dignity. Yet he longed to state his version of the matters mentioned, in the hopes of winning his critic to a more favorable opinion. The charm of incognito had ceased; he felt like an accused man who is precluded

from saying a single word in his own defence.

Vernon, on the other hand, was enjoying himself intensely; to speak one's mind is often a pleasure, to speak it to a person before whom one has usually to preserve a respectful silence is a pleasure enhanced beyond words. He felt that he was having a glorious innings, and now that he was well "set" he determined to have another slog or two at the bowling.

"I suppose the chap means well," he said, with the air of one who makes a concession, "but he really is such a poisonous ass that one almost feels sorry for him. He would probably do all right if he were not so frightfully self-satisfied; he seems to think he is the only chap in this country who knows anything about anything, and the consequence is that he has done a lot of harm. Why can't he listen to his advisers more? They are experts: anyway, they have spent their lives out here and have had some chance of learning about the country."

now.

Lord Chilworth wilted again; never since he had been a small boy at Eton had he been compelled to listen to such horrible things. And it was by his own doing that he had to listen to them Yet he could see no way of escape without giving himself away. He thanked his stars that there was no witness to his present humiliation. The hectoring tone adopted by his companion had left him without a kick in him; it was not his rôle to be a passive listener, but Vernon had compelled him to adopt it, and to this offence had added the injury of showing him the picture of himself as seen by all the Vernons in India, and possibly by others older and wiser than that candid young officer.

But there was worse to come.

"He is such a conceited beast, too. When he visits a place and has a State departure everyone has to go down to

the station in full uniform to see him off. Well, you ought to see the way that fellow walks across the platform, he hardly condescends to acknowledge the salutes. He perhaps throws a word to the General and the Commissioner, then he puffs out his bally chest and struts into his train as the King himself would not do. He generally gets in before his wife, too, which really is a bit thick. Of course he is Viceroy, and she isn't, but it seems a bit unnecessary all the same. you think so?"

Don't

"Perhaps he looks on it as a constitutional matter," suggested Lord Chilworth, uneasily.

"Oh, that's rather rot, I think. And there is another thing he likes to do: if he wants a parade-though why a civilian like him should want to review soldiers I can't think-you can almost bet he will order it for a Thursday. He can't possibly remember that Thursday is the weekly holiday in India. It is a bit thick, don't you think?"

Lord Chilworth threw away the glowing end of his cheroot with a jerk of irritation.

"I feel," he said, "that I must speak a word for the Viceroy; you see I know him pretty well, and I think you judge him harshly. Of couse it was I who asked you to speak out your mind, so I must not complain if I hear my friend abused. But you must try to make some allowance for his difficulties."

"Oh, I do," said Vernon blandly, "we all do. Of course he is a Balliol man and a double-first and all that, and having been at Cambridge myself I know what sort of a handicap that is to a fellow. I always try to make that clear to fellows, but chaps who have not been to the 'Varsity naturally cannot understand. When I think of the Viceroy I always thank heaven, like Bunyan or Baxter or some other old cock in history, who, when he saw a

chap going to be hung, always remembered that it might have been himself. I realize that it might have happened to me, just like it has happened to Chilworth, and I tell you I feel jolly sorry for him."

"That is kind of you," rejoined the Viceroy, without the least irony; "and what school did you take at Cambridge?"

"I didn't take any school, and that is just where my luck held good. Suppose I had gone in for a Tripos and by some extraordinary accident had taken Honors, I might have turned out an Al smug. But I was sent down; a little affair with the Dean, you know, and though the bounder behaved like a cad I must say I can't help feeling grateful to him."

"Sent down?" said the Viceroy, adding, with some malice, "Wine, I suppose?"

"Oh no, not drunk, if that is what you mean a little affair of blowing in the fellow's door. But that chap never had any sense of humor. Rather like Chilworth again."

Again the Viceroy winced; whatever he said he always got hurt. He rose from the deck-chair.

"My companions will never find me to-night," he said. "I wonder if you could give me some kind of shake

down."

"Rather," answered the other. "I have told my bearer to give you my bed, and I will sleep on a charpoy. We will find your camp all right in the morning. Nobody will be anxious about you in the meantime, I suppose?"

"Well, I daresay there will be some little anxiety on my behalf,” replied Lord Chilworth, "but, really, I don't quite know what is to be done. Do you?"

"Oh, take it easy till morning," said Vernon; "we will find them or they will find us all right when to-morrow comes."

He rather enjoyed the idea of the gilded staff spending a night in frenzied search for the ruler of the land. There was something very unusual about such a thing, for Viceroys do not get mislaid with any frequency.

During the watches of the night Lord Chilworth wondered how he could escape from further suffering at the hands of his host, and how, too, he could avoid recognition by him. He brooded miserably over what had been said to him with such bold and brutal candor, and the more he thought of it, the more humiliated he felt, and the more anxious to escape further racking in this manner. He felt sure that he would blurt out an admission of his identity if he were subjected to any more of Vernon's gadfly tactics. was not until the cocks had begun to crow that the Viceroy fell into an uneasy slumber.

It

Vernon also lay awake; he was at first too full of pleasure at his performance to think of sleep. He remembered all the biting things that he had said, and he felt sure that they had bitten deep; he wondered if anyone had ever before had such a chance of smiting the exalted, or having it, had dared to use it. This particular Amalekite had been smitten hip and thigh; he had taken some woundy thrusts under his fifth rib, he had been hewn in pieces like Agag. And the blighter had deserved every bit of it, if only for the fact of withholding his identity.

Then another thought occurred to Vernon. It suddenly struck him that he had been horribly inhospitable and had taken pains to insult his guest. He had been deliberately offensive and had simply laid himself out to hurt his guest's feelings and to wound him in every possible way.

In the hour of victory repentance seized the candid Mr. Vernon.

The next morning the Viceroy awoke early; he had half-intended to steal out of camp in the hope of avoiding his host, but he found that that gentleman had already risen and was walking up and down outside. Vernon espied the Viceroy standing at the tent door and approached him.

"Sir," he said, "I owe you an apology. I knew who you were all the time last night, though I pretended that I did not. I said the most absolutely caddish things to you, and I beg your pardon."

Lord Chilworth gazed at him openmouthed; this was not the kind of speech that he had expected from his host, and he was so surprised at his change of tone that he failed to realize the full audacity of Vernon's conduct of the previous night.

"You mean to say that you knew who I was!" he ejaculated.

"Yes, sir, of course I knew you were the Viceroy," said Vernon doggedly.

"Really you are the most astonishing young man." replied Lord Chilworth; "but I must own that to some extent I brought it on myself. I ought to have told you who I was, for then of course you would not have been quite so honest with me. You are pretty candid, are you not?"

When the Viceregal staff arrived. nearly distraught with searching for their Lord and Master, they found him and Vernon discussing tinned sausages together in the most friendly way. There was quite an amicable dispute as to who should take the odd sausage, but finally the Viceroy gracefully accepted it.

"Sausages," he said, "are one of the few really dependable and trustworthy things that ever came out of Cambridge-always excepting your

self."

"Really, sir," answered Vernon, "the

Dean was the most rotten chap. ought never to have sent me down." The Pall Mall Magazine.

He

"Ah, but he did lack a sense of humor, didn't he?" said the Viceroy slyly. E. Christian.

It would be a curious subject of research to ascertain about what date the last British orator and the last British newspaper discoursed on the unchanging East. We should hazard the guess that it was probably about the time, four years ago, when Lord Cromer gave to the world a history of his Consulate in Egypt, which was in effect a sermon on Aristotle's text that Asiatics are naturally slaves. Persia in the interval has won her freedom and been robbed of it. Turkey is passing through her second General Election. China has seen this week the euthanasia of the Manchu dynasty and the birth of the first Oriental Republic. Our wonder has so far passed that it is only with the local circumstances of the miracle in China that our minds are busied. Change in the stagnant East is already normal, and we are only startled because in the most conservative of all Eastern lands it has taken a form so extreme. The pace of the transformation has indeed been accelerated with terrific impetus. The world was mildly amused when, as an appendix to the first of the two Near East revolutions, there came an edict from the Chinese Throne which laid down the programme of a gradual advance to full representative government. was sketched with pedantic exactitude, outlining year by year the steps to be followed in this seemingly vertiginous change. But events have outstripped the calendar, and in half the time allotted to the transition from autocracy to responsible government, China has become a Federal Republic. The reforms, which seemed to come spontaneously by an initiative from

It

above, must have been in fact a concession to pressure which probably was formidable and menacing though applied in secret.

The Manchu dynasty was, in fact, almost the only modern institution in China. A form of government which has a mere 270 years behind it has hardly begun to be venerable in a land which has seen no break and but little change in its civilization since the days of dynasties contemporary with the Romans. One is inclined to think that the extreme hatred and contempt with which recent generations have regarded it does some injustice at least to its early records. It brought stable government after anarchy and discord, and reduced the half-conquered borderlands to order. The Manchus were neither barbarous nor illiterate when they seized the throne, and they rapidly assimilated Chinese culture. In their decay they have but illustrated the fate of every parasitic class. Had they possessed the elasticity of mind required to learn European drill and to manage a quick-firer, the Republican movement might never have advanced beyond the stage of conspiracy and propaganda. The Manchus have succumbed to their own lethargy of mind, and their destiny is now to become the one absolutely negligible factor in the new order. The generous terms which the Republic has accorded to the dethroned dynasty and the privileged caste which supported it are probably not the outcome of any sentimental generosity or magnanimity. They mean, we suspect, that the Chinese are satisfied that the Manchus are too enervated, too incompetent, too incapable