important class, the cultivators"; and so on, and so on. The Legal Member's knowledge of natives was limited to English-speaking Durbaris, and his own red chaprassis, the Sub-Montane Tracts concerned no one in particular, the Deputy Commissioners were a good deal too driven to make representations, and the measure was one which dealt with small landholders only. Nevertheless, the Legal Member prayed that it might be correct, for he was a nervously conscientious man. He did not know that no man can tell what natives think unless he mixes with them with the varnish off. And not always then. But he did the best he knew. And the measure came up to the Supreme Council for the final touches, while Tods. patrolled the Burra Simla Bazar in his morning rides, and played with the monkey belonging to Ditta Mull, the bunnia, and listened, as a child listens, to all the stray talk about this new freak of the Lat Sahib's.

One day there was a dinner-party, at the house of Tods' Mamma, and the Legal Member came. Tods was in bed, but he kept awake till he heard the bursts of laughter from the men over the coffee. Then he paddled out in his little red flannel dressing-gown and his nightsuit and took refuge by the side of his father, knowing that he would not be sent back. "See the miseries of having a family!" said Tods' father, giving Tods three prunes, some water in a glass that had been used for claret, and telling him to sit still. Tods sucked the prunes slowly, knowing that he would have to go when they were finished, and sipped the pink water like a man of the world, as he listened to the conversation. Presently, the Legal Member, talking "shop" to the Head of a Department, mentioned his Bill by its full name"The Sub Montane Tracts Ryotwary Revised Enactment."

Tods caught the one native word and lifting up his small voice said :

"Oh, I know all about that! Has it been murramutted yet, Councillor Sahib."

"How much?" said the Legal Member.

"Murramutted-mended.-Put theek, you know-made nice to please Ditta Mull!"

The Legal Member left his place and moved up next to Tods.

“What do you know about Ryotwari, little man?” he said.

"I'm not a little man, I'm Tods, and I know all about it. Ditta Mull, and Choga Lall, and Amir Nath, and-oh, lakhs of my friends tell me about it in the bazars when I talk to them."

"Oh, they do-do they? What do they say, Tods?" Tods tucked his feet under his red flannel dressinggown and said :-"I must fink."

The Legal Member waited patiently. Then Tods, with infinite compassion :

"You don't speak my talk, do you, Councillor Sahib?" "No; I am sorry to say I do not," said the Legal Member.

"Very well," said Tods," "I must fink in English."

He spent a minute putting his ideas in order, and began very slowly, translating in his mind from the vernacular to English, as many Anglo-Indian children do. You must remember that the Legal Member helped him on by questions when he halted, for Tods was not equal to the sustained flight of oratory that follows.

"Ditta Mull says :-'This thing is the talk of a child, and was made up by fools.' But I don't think you are a fool, Councillor Sahib," said Tods hastily. "You caught my goat. This is what Ditta Mull says:-'I am

not a fool, and why should the Sirkar say I am a child? I can see if the land is good and if the landlord is good. If I am a fool, the sin is upon my own head. For five years I take my ground for which I have saved money, and a wife I take too, and a little son is born.' Ditta Mull has one daughter now, but he says he will have a son, soon. And he says: 'At the end of five years, by this new bundobust, I must go. If I do not go, I must get fresh seals and takkus-stamps on the papers, perhaps in the middle of the harvest, and to go to the law courts once is wisdom, but to go twice is Jehannum.' That is quite true," explained Tods gravely. "All my friends say so. And Ditta Mull says :-'Always fresh takkus and paying money to vakils and chaprassis and law-courts every five years, or else the landlord makes me go. Why do I want to go? Am I a fool? If I am a fool and do not know, after forty years, good land when I see it, let me die ! But if the new bundobust says for fifteen years, that it is good and wise. My little son is a man, and I am burnt, and he takes the ground or another ground, paying only once for the lakkus-stamps on the papers, and his little son is born, and at the end of fifteen years is a But what profit is there in five years and fresh papers? Nothing but dikh, trouble, dikh. We are not young men who take these lands, but old ones—not jats, but tradesmen with a little money-and for fifteen years we shall have peace. Nor are we children that the Sirkar should treat us so.'

man too.

Here Tods stopped short, for the whole table were listening. The Legal Member said to Tods: "Is that all ?"

"All I can remember," said Tods. "But you should see Ditta Mull's big monkey. It's just like a Councillor Sahib."

"Tods! Go to bed," said his father.

Tods gathered up his dressing-gown tail and departed. The Legal Member brought his hand down on the table with a crash-" By Jove!" said the Legal Member, "I believe the boy is right. The short tenure is the weak point.'

He left early, thinking over what Tods had said. Now, it was obviously impossible for the Legal Member to play with a bunnia's monkey, by way of getting understanding; but he did better. He made inquiries, always bearing in mind the fact that the real native-not the hybrid, University-trained mule-is as timid as a colt, and, little by little, he coaxed some of the men whom the measure concerned most intimately to give in their views, which squared very closely with Tod's evidence.

So the Bill was amended in that clause; and the Legal Member was filled with an uneasy suspicion that Native Members represent very little except the Orders they carry on their bosoms. But he put the thought from him as

illiberal.

He was a most Liberal man.

After a time, the news spread through the bazars that Tods had got the Bill recast in the tenure-clause, and if Tods' Mamma had not interfered, Tods would have made himself sick on the baskets of fruit and pistachio nuts and Cabuli grapes and almonds that crowded the verandah. Till he went Home, Tods ranked some few degrees before the Viceroy in popular estimation. But for the little life of him Tods could not understand why.

In the Legal Member's private-paper-box still lies the rough draft of the Sub-Montane Tracts Ryotwary Revised Enactment; and, opposite the twenty-second clause, pencilled in blue chalk, and signed by the Legal Member, are the word " Tods' Amendment."

THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT.

Jain 'Ardin' was a Sarjint's wife,

A Sarjint's wife wus she.

She married of 'im in Orldershort

An' comed acrost the sea.

(Chorus) 'Ave you never 'eard tell o' Jain 'Ardin' ?

Jain 'Ardin'?

Jain 'Ardin'?

'Ave you never 'eard tell o' Jain 'Ardin'?

The pride o' the Companee?

Old Barrack-Room Ballad.

"A GENTLEMAN who doesn't know the Circassian Circle ought not to stand up for it-puttin' everybody out." That was what Miss McKenna said, and the Sergeant who was my vis-a-vis looked the same thing. I was afraid of Miss McKenna. She was six feet high, all yellow freckles and red hair, and was simply clad in white satin shoes, a pink muslin dress, an apple-green stuff sash, and black silk gloves, with yellow roses in her hair. Wherefore I fled from Miss McKenna and sought my friend Private Mulvaney who was at the cant-refreshment-table.

"So you've been dancin' with little Jhansi McKenna, Sorr-she that's goin' to marry Corp'ril Slane? Whin you next conversh wid your lorruds an' your ladies, tell thim you've danced wid little Jhansi. Tis a thing to be proud av."

But I wasn't proud. I was humble. I saw a story in Private Mulvaney's eye; and, besides, if he stayed too long at the bar, he would, I knew, qualify for more pack