"
"I can send your telegrams within ten days if that will serve you," I
said.
"I can send your telegrams within ten days if that will serve you," I
said.
Kipling - Poems
This is why in hot weather Intermediates are taken out of the
carriages dead, and in all weathers are most properly looked down upon.
My particular Intermediate happened to be empty till I reached
Nasirabad, when the big black-browed gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered,
and, following the custom of Intermediates, passed the time of day. He
was a wanderer and a vagabond like myself, but with an educated
taste for whisky. He told tales of things he had seen and done, of
out-of-the-way corners of the Empire into which he had penetrated, and
of adventures in which he risked his life for a few days' food.
"If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than
the crows where they'd get their next day's rations, it isn't seventy
millions of revenue the land would be paying--it's seven hundred
millions," said he; and as I looked at his mouth and chin I was disposed
to agree with him.
We talked politics,--the politics of Loaferdom that sees things from
the under side where the lath and plaster is not smoothed off,--and we
talked postal arrangements because my friend wanted to send a telegram
back from the next station to Ajmir, the turning-off place from the
Bombay to the Mhow line as you travel westward. My friend had no money
beyond eight annas which he wanted for dinner, and I had no money at
all, owing to the hitch in the Budget before mentioned. Further, I was
going into a wilderness where, though I should resume touch with the
Treasury, there were no telegraph offices. I was, therefore, unable to
help him in any way.
"We might threaten a Station-master, and make him send a wire on tick,"
said my friend, "but that'd mean inquiries for you and for me, and I've
got my hands full these days. Did you say you were travelling back along
this line within any days? "
"Within ten," I said.
"Can't you make it eight? " said he. "Mine is rather urgent business.
"
"I can send your telegrams within ten days if that will serve you," I
said.
"I couldn't trust the wire to fetch him, now I think of it. It's this
way. He leaves Delhi on the 23rd for Bombay. That means he'll be running
through Ajmir about the night of the 23rd. "
"But I'm going into the Indian Desert," I explained.
"Well and good," said he. "You'll be changing at Marwar Junction to get
into Jodhpore territory,--you must do that,--and he'll be coming through
Marwar Junction in the early morning of the 24th by the Bombay Mail. Can
you be at Marwar Junction on that time? 'T won't be inconveniencing you,
because I know that there's precious few pickings to be got out of these
Central India States--even though you pretend to be correspondent of the
'Backwoodsman. '"
"Have you ever tried that trick? " I asked.
"Again and again, but the Residents find you out, and then you get
escorted to the Border before you've time to get your knife into them.
But about my friend here. I must give him a word o' mouth to tell him
what's come to me, or else he won't know where to go. I would take it
more than kind of you if you was to come out of Central India in time to
catch him at Marwar Junction, and say to him, 'He has gone South for the
week.
carriages dead, and in all weathers are most properly looked down upon.
My particular Intermediate happened to be empty till I reached
Nasirabad, when the big black-browed gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered,
and, following the custom of Intermediates, passed the time of day. He
was a wanderer and a vagabond like myself, but with an educated
taste for whisky. He told tales of things he had seen and done, of
out-of-the-way corners of the Empire into which he had penetrated, and
of adventures in which he risked his life for a few days' food.
"If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than
the crows where they'd get their next day's rations, it isn't seventy
millions of revenue the land would be paying--it's seven hundred
millions," said he; and as I looked at his mouth and chin I was disposed
to agree with him.
We talked politics,--the politics of Loaferdom that sees things from
the under side where the lath and plaster is not smoothed off,--and we
talked postal arrangements because my friend wanted to send a telegram
back from the next station to Ajmir, the turning-off place from the
Bombay to the Mhow line as you travel westward. My friend had no money
beyond eight annas which he wanted for dinner, and I had no money at
all, owing to the hitch in the Budget before mentioned. Further, I was
going into a wilderness where, though I should resume touch with the
Treasury, there were no telegraph offices. I was, therefore, unable to
help him in any way.
"We might threaten a Station-master, and make him send a wire on tick,"
said my friend, "but that'd mean inquiries for you and for me, and I've
got my hands full these days. Did you say you were travelling back along
this line within any days? "
"Within ten," I said.
"Can't you make it eight? " said he. "Mine is rather urgent business.
"
"I can send your telegrams within ten days if that will serve you," I
said.
"I couldn't trust the wire to fetch him, now I think of it. It's this
way. He leaves Delhi on the 23rd for Bombay. That means he'll be running
through Ajmir about the night of the 23rd. "
"But I'm going into the Indian Desert," I explained.
"Well and good," said he. "You'll be changing at Marwar Junction to get
into Jodhpore territory,--you must do that,--and he'll be coming through
Marwar Junction in the early morning of the 24th by the Bombay Mail. Can
you be at Marwar Junction on that time? 'T won't be inconveniencing you,
because I know that there's precious few pickings to be got out of these
Central India States--even though you pretend to be correspondent of the
'Backwoodsman. '"
"Have you ever tried that trick? " I asked.
"Again and again, but the Residents find you out, and then you get
escorted to the Border before you've time to get your knife into them.
But about my friend here. I must give him a word o' mouth to tell him
what's come to me, or else he won't know where to go. I would take it
more than kind of you if you was to come out of Central India in time to
catch him at Marwar Junction, and say to him, 'He has gone South for the
week.
