No More Learning

His crowning achievement was spending eleven days as a faquir in the
gardens of Baba Atal at Amritsar, and there picking up the threads of
the great Nasiban Murder Case. But people said, justly enough: "Why on
earth can't Strickland sit in his office and write up his diary, and
recruit, and keep quiet, instead of showing up the incapacity of his
seniors? " So the Nasiban Murder Case did him no good departmentally;
but, after his first feeling of wrath, he returned to his outlandish
custom of prying into native life. By the way, when a man once acquires
a taste for this particular amusement, it abides with him all his days.
It is the most fascinating thing in the world; Love not excepted. Where
other men took ten days to the Hills, Strickland took leave for what
he called shikar, put on the disguise that appealed to him at the time,
stepped down into the brown crowd, and was swallowed up for a while. He
was a quiet, dark young fellow--spare, black-eyes--and, when he was not
thinking of something else, a very interesting companion. Strickland
on Native Progress as he had seen it was worth hearing. Natives hated
Strickland; but they were afraid of him. He knew too much.

When the Youghals came into the station, Strickland--very gravely, as he
did everything--fell in love with Miss Youghal; and she, after a
while, fell in love with him because she could not understand him. Then
Strickland told the parents; but Mrs. Youghal said she was not going to
throw her daughter into the worst paid Department in the Empire, and old
Youghal said, in so many words, that he mistrusted Strickland's ways
and works, and would thank him not to speak or write to his daughter
any more. "Very well," said Strickland, for he did not wish to make
his lady-love's life a burden. After one long talk with Miss Youghal he
dropped the business entirely.
The Youghals went up to Simla in April.

In July, Strickland secured three months' leave on "urgent private
affairs. " He locked up his house--though not a native in the Providence
would wittingly have touched "Estreekin Sahib's" gear for the world--and
went down to see a friend of his, an old dyer, at Tarn Taran.

Here all trace of him was lost, until a sais met me on the Simla Mall
with this extraordinary note:

"Dear old man,

"Please give bearer a box of cheroots--Supers, No. I, for preference.
They are freshest at the Club. I'll repay when I reappear; but at
present I'm out of Society.

"Yours,

"E. STRICKLAND. "

I ordered two boxes, and handed them over to the sais with my love.

That sais was Strickland, and he was in old Youghal's employ, attached
to Miss Youghal's Arab. The poor fellow was suffering for an English
smoke, and knew that whatever happened I should hold my tongue till the
business was over.

Later on, Mrs. Youghal, who was wrapped up in her servants, began
talking at houses where she called of her paragon among saises--the man
who was never too busy to get up in the morning and pick flowers for
the breakfast-table, and who blacked--actually BLACKED--the hoofs of his
horse like a London coachman! The turnout of Miss Youghal's Arab was a
wonder and a delight. Strickland--Dulloo, I mean--found his reward
in the pretty things that Miss Youghal said to him when she went out
riding.