No More Learning

Will you help me? " Mrs. Hauksbee thought for a minute, and passed
the last of her riding-whip through her lips, as was her custom when
thinking.

Then her eyes sparkled, and she said:--"I will;" and she shook hands
on it. Tarrion, having perfect confidence in this great woman, took no
further thought of the business at all. Except to wonder what sort of an
appointment he would win.

Mrs. Hauksbee began calculating the prices of all the Heads of
Departments and Members of Council she knew, and the more she thought
the more she laughed, because her heart was in the game and it amused
her. Then she took a Civil List and ran over a few of the appointments.
There are some beautiful appointments in the Civil List. Eventually, she
decided that, though Tarrion was too good for the Political Department,
she had better begin by trying to get him in there. What were her own
plans to this end, does not matter in the least, for Luck or Fate played
into her hands, and she had nothing to do but to watch the course of
events and take the credit of them.

All Viceroys, when they first come out, pass through the "Diplomatic
Secrecy" craze. It wears off in time; but they all catch it in the
beginning, because they are new to the country.

The particular Viceroy who was suffering from the complaint just
then--this was a long time ago, before Lord Dufferin ever came from
Canada, or Lord Ripon from the bosom of the English Church--had it very
badly; and the result was that men who were new to keeping official
secrets went about looking unhappy; and the Viceroy plumed himself on
the way in which he had instilled notions of reticence into his Staff.
Now, the Supreme Government have a careless custom of committing
what they do to printed papers. These papers deal with all sorts of
things--from the payment of Rs. 200 to a "secret service" native, up to
rebukes administered to Vakils and Motamids of Native States, and rather
brusque letters to Native Princes, telling them to put their houses
in order, to refrain from kidnapping women, or filling offenders with
pounded red pepper, and eccentricities of that kind. Of course, these
things could never be made public, because Native Princes never err
officially, and their States are, officially, as well administered as
Our territories. Also, the private allowances to various queer people
are not exactly matters to put into newspapers, though they give quaint
reading sometimes.

When the Supreme Government is at Simla, these papers are prepared
there, and go round to the people who ought to see them in office-boxes
or by post. The principle of secrecy was to that Viceroy quite as
important as the practice, and he held that a benevolent despotism like
Ours should never allow even little things, such as appointments of
subordinate clerks, to leak out till the proper time. He was always
remarkable for his principles.

There was a very important batch of papers in preparation at that time.
It had to travel from one end of Simla to the other by hand.

It was not put into an official envelope, but a large, square, pale-pink
one; the matter being in MS. on soft crinkly paper. It was addressed to
"The Head Clerk, etc. , etc. " Now, between "The Head Clerk, etc. , etc.