No More Learning

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. ,"
and "Mrs. Hauksbee" and a flourish, is no very great difference if the
address be written in a very bad hand, as this was. The chaprassi who
took the envelope was not more of an idiot than most chaprassis. He
merely forgot where this most unofficial cover was to be delivered, and
so asked the first Englishman he met, who happened to be a man riding
down to Annandale in a great hurry. The Englishman hardly looked, said:
"Hauksbee Sahib ki Mem," and went on. So did the chaprassi, because that
letter was the last in stock and he wanted to get his work over. There
was no book to sign; he thrust the letter into Mrs. Hauksbee's bearer's
hands and went off to smoke with a friend.

Mrs.
Hauksbee was expecting some cut-out pattern things in flimsy paper
from a friend. As soon as she got the big square packet, therefore, she
said, "Oh, the DEAR creature! " and tore it open with a paper-knife, and
all the MS. enclosures tumbled out on the floor.

Mrs. Hauksbee began reading. I have said the batch was rather
important. That is quite enough for you to know. It referred to some
correspondence, two measures, a peremptory order to a native chief and
two dozen other things. Mrs. Hauksbee gasped as she read, for the first
glimpse of the naked machinery of the Great Indian Government, stripped
of its casings, and lacquer, and paint, and guard-rails, impresses even
the most stupid man. And Mrs. Hauksbee was a clever woman. She was
a little afraid at first, and felt as if she had laid hold of a
lightning-flash by the tail, and did not quite know what to do with it.
There were remarks and initials at the side of the papers; and some
of the remarks were rather more severe than the papers. The initials
belonged to men who are all dead or gone now; but they were great in
their day.