"It was the office which found him, when it came for signature of papers next day, and there was nothing disturbed, only the Huzoor lying where they could see him easily from the front door, and the horse comfortable in its stall, with plenty of grass. He was always thoughtful to the poor was the sahib, and never gave trouble to others. At least, so his servants say--but what can they know--poor, mean creatures, who do not even know when a kettle boils!"
I let him talk, for somehow I did not wish to think. In much the same mood I went doggedly through my day's work in taking over charge and reducing chaos to order--or, rather, conventional order, for through all the disgraceful neglect of ordinary routine ran the unmistakable thread of one man's control, and of a strong man at that, even in its favouritism, its flagrant derelictions from the ordinary conception of a magistrate's duty.
As I got into my dogcart to come home, an orderly came forward, with a doubtful air, carrying a small bag, such as natives use as a purse.
"It was the custom," he began; but by this time I felt that I must return to a right judgment of things, so I purposely lost my temper, and let it be known that all old customs were to be abolished. "It was only the pennies for the children on Fridays," stuttered the orderly. "The Huzoor used always to give them----"
I drove off, thinking that, perhaps, my predecessor might have been wise in choosing a higher tribunal.
My bearer, however, who, as usual, stood in the verandah to receive my hat, had no doubts in the totality of his blame. He was full of virtuous activities. Order, in some measure, had been restored. Certain screens of grass, which had been removed against a time when the mem might find them useful in the poultry yard, and the outhouses having been finally cleared--by the aid of the police--of various pensioners and idle folk, who wept profusely, had been duly distributed among the servants, he himself having taken one with a women's enclosure, which would be the cause of great comfort.
I bid him take what he liked, and for the first time went into the drawing-room, where he said my tea awaited me.
I shall never forget my first look at that room, with its five straight, undraped windows, set in a row round one slightly curved wall. The others bare, save for the shadows, which were fast creeping to obliterate even the bareness. The windows were mere oblongs of dim light, stretching up into the lofty roof, and that shadow looming in one shadowy corner, across a vast expanse of shadowy matting, must be the Bechstein piano. I made a move towards it, and stumbled against my own tea-table, a highly ornate, sham Oriental, carved thing, which the bearer, by my wife's orders, carried about with him religiously, and at the same time the bearer himself entered with the reading lamp, without which, so I am told, I cannot exist.