It will be observed their Excellencies liked good looking men on their staff.
[Illustration: STAFF AND GUESTS AT VICEREGAL LODGE, SIMLA
_Left to right_: Capt. Rochfort (now Sir Alex. Rochfort, Governor of Jersey); Honble. Miss Lawley, Capt. Harbord (now Lord Suffield), Lady Elizabeth Clough-Taylor, Lord Alwyne Compton, Lady Wenlock, Lord William Beresford, Lady Charles Beresford, Mr. Primrose, Captain St. Quinten
_On ground, left to right_: Capt. Muir and Capt. Clough-Taylor]
Now I am anxious to tell you about the fancy dress balls.
Some of the dresses worn in India on these occasions are marvellous, people out there seem to take much greater pains to do the thing properly, and there have been many anxious moments in case the dresses should not arrive from Paris or England in time. One fancy dress ball I remember as being particularly amusing, but it was not at Simla. Lord William appeared as a Chelsea Pensioner, and was quite excellent. A good looking woman, wife of an Artilleryman, was “A Wasp”; she naturally had a tiny waist. The wondrous dress with its stripy bands of yellow, black gauze wings, and the little antennae in her head, all well carried out, but the wings made dancing difficult, so she sat in a corner with the Chelsea Pensioner a good deal. The poor old Pensioner did not like much light--it hurt his poor old eyes. But the chief joke of the evening was when a big hefty hospital nurse carried into the ballroom a very lusty looking big red-faced baby, with a distinctly blue line along the upper lip. A white rosette-adorned cap tied under his chin, a short white frock reaching a little below his knees which stuck out all round from the amount of material it contained, which, however, helped to support a big blue sash, matching the shoulder knots; frilled kicksey-wickseys, white socks and sandal shoes completed this child’s costume. The bottle of milk which he was sucking, or pretending to suck, was fixed to his sash, and had a long tube. The nurse put down her charge to toddle along the floor, still holding his hand, but the baby if left for a moment began to cry.
It was not long before we discovered in the baby a hard riding man who had brought some hounds out from home and given us some amusement with them in the cold weather, his nurse was an officer in a smart cavalry regiment. Before the evening was over so many practical jokes had been played on the poor baby that he and his nurse in self-defence retired and changed into ordinary evening garments; but not before supper, when Lord William insisted on feeding the baby with a tablespoon, and dived first into one dish and then another so quickly that the already red-faced baby became apoplectic; it was after this he escaped, having been severely patted on the back for a choking fit.