No More Learning

Pluffles' weakness was not believing what people said. He preferred what
he called "trusting to his own judgment. " He had as much judgment as he
had seat or hands; and this preference tumbled him into trouble once or
twice. But the biggest trouble Pluffles ever manufactured came about at
Simla--some years ago, when he was four-and-twenty.

He began by trusting to his own judgment, as usual, and the result
was that, after a time, he was bound hand and foot to Mrs. Reiver's
'rickshaw wheels.

There was nothing good about Mrs. Reiver, unless it was her dress.

She was bad from her hair--which started life on a Brittany's girl's
head--to her boot-heels, which were two and three-eighth inches high.
She was not honestly mischievous like Mrs. Hauksbee; she was wicked in a
business-like way.

There was never any scandal--she had not generous impulses enough for
that. She was the exception which proved the rule that Anglo-Indian
ladies are in every way as nice as their sisters at Home.

She spent her life in proving that rule.

Mrs.
Hauksbee and she hated each other fervently. They heard far
too much to clash; but the things they said of each other were
startling--not to say original. Mrs. Hauksbee was honest--honest as her
own front teeth--and, but for her love of mischief, would have been
a woman's woman. There was no honesty about Mrs. Reiver; nothing but
selfishness. And at the beginning of the season, poor little Pluffles
fell a prey to her. She laid herself out to that end, and who was
Pluffles, to resist? He went on trusting to his judgment, and he got
judged.

I have seen Hayes argue with a tough horse--I have seen a tonga-driver
coerce a stubborn pony--I have seen a riotous setter broken to gun by a
hard keeper--but the breaking-in of Pluffles of the "Unmentionables" was
beyond all these. He learned to fetch and carry like a dog, and to
wait like one, too, for a word from Mrs. Reiver. He learned to keep
appointments which Mrs. Reiver had no intention of keeping. He learned
to take thankfully dances which Mrs. Reiver had no intention of giving
him.