No More Learning

Some
day, I will tell you how he broke his promise to help a friend. That
was long since, and he has, by this time, been nearly spoilt for what
he would call shikar. He is forgetting the slang, and the beggar's cant,
and the marks, and the signs, and the drift of the undercurrents, which,
if a man would master, he must always continue to learn.

But he fills in his Departmental returns beautifully.




YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVER.

I am dying for you, and you are dying for another. --Punjabi
Proverb.

When the Gravesend tender left the P. & 0. steamer for Bombay and went
back to catch the train to Town, there were many people in it crying.
But the one who wept most, and most openly was Miss Agnes Laiter. She
had reason to cry, because the only man she ever loved--or ever could
love, so she said--was going out to India; and India, as every one
knows, is divided equally between jungle, tigers, cobras, cholera, and
sepoys.

Phil Garron, leaning over the side of the steamer in the rain, felt very
unhappy too; but he did not cry. He was sent out to "tea. " What "tea"
meant he had not the vaguest idea, but fancied that he would have to
ride on a prancing horse over hills covered with tea-vines, and draw a
sumptuous salary for doing so; and he was very grateful to his uncle
for getting him the berth.
He was really going to reform all his slack,
shiftless ways, save a large proportion of his magnificent salary
yearly, and, in a very short time, return to marry Agnes Laiter. Phil
Garron had been lying loose on his friends' hands for three years, and,
as he had nothing to do, he naturally fell in love. He was very nice;
but he was not strong in his views and opinions and principles, and
though he never came to actual grief his friends were thankful when
he said good-bye, and went out to this mysterious "tea" business near
Darjiling. They said:--"God bless you, dear boy! Let us never see your
face again,"--or at least that was what Phil was given to understand.

When he sailed, he was very full of a great plan to prove himself
several hundred times better than any one had given him credit for--to
work like a horse, and triumphantly marry Agnes Laiter. He had many good
points besides his good looks; his only fault being that he was weak,
the least little bit in the world weak. He had as much notion of economy
as the Morning Sun; and yet you could not lay your hand on any one item,
and say: "Herein Phil Garron is extravagant or reckless. " Nor could
you point out any particular vice in his character; but he was
"unsatisfactory" and as workable as putty.

Agnes Laiter went about her duties at home--her family objected to the
engagement--with red eyes, while Phil was sailing to Darjiling--"a port
on the Bengal Ocean," as his mother used to tell her friends. He was
popular enough on board ship, made many acquaintances and a moderately
large liquor bill, and sent off huge letters to Agnes Laiter at each
port. Then he fell to work on this plantation, somewhere between
Darjiling and Kangra, and, though the salary and the horse and the work
were not quite all he had fancied, he succeeded fairly well, and gave
himself much unnecessary credit for his perseverance.

In the course of time, as he settled more into collar, and his work grew
fixed before him, the face of Agnes Laiter went out of his mind and only
came when he was at leisure, which was not often. He would forget
all about her for a fortnight, and remember her with a start, like a
school-boy who has forgotten to learn his lesson.

She did not forget Phil, because she was of the kind that never forgets.
Only, another man--a really desirable young man--presented himself
before Mrs.