THE MAN (seated and twirling his hat):  “You have just come out?”

MYSELF:  “Yes, in the Scotia.”  Remarks follow about the voyage.

THE MAN:  “What do you think of India?”

MYSELF:  “Oh, rather nice, don’t you think?”

THE MAN:  “Oh, quite a decent place—­what?”

Again the servant appears, this time with two cards.  Again I murmur the Open Sesame, and two more men appear.  No. 1 gets up to go, shakes hands with me in a detached way, and departs, and the same conversation begins again with the new-comers, until they, in their turn, leave when someone else comes in.  It seems to be etiquette to go away whenever another visitor arrives.  I didn’t understand this, and when a man came whom I knew well in my childhood’s days and, after a few minutes’ stay, got up to depart, I grabbed his hand and said, “Oh, won’t you stay and have a talk?” He, very nicely, stayed on, and we did have a delightful talk; but Victor Ormonde, who happened to be present, has never ceased to chaff me about it.  When we dine with them and get up to go he says in thrilling accents, with an absurdly sentimental air, “Oh! won’t you stay and have a talk?”

I do think India makes very nice men.  Almost every man I have met has been delightful in his own way....  I had just written that last sentence when a servant brought in a card inscribed “Colonel Simpson.”  I got my sunshade and walked round to my sitting-room, where I found a tall, pensive-looking man.  Thinking he must be a friend of Boggley’s, I held out my hand frankly, and having shaken it, the man went on holding it.

Like Captain Hook, I murmured to myself, “This is unusual,” but I tried to conceal my astonishment, and we sat down together on the sofa.  Then he began to feel my pulse.  By this time I had made up my mind he must be a lunatic, and I had a wild idea of snatching away my hand and making a bound for the window; but feeling that my legs were too weak with fright to be of any real use to me, I remained seated.

“Are you sick?” he asked.

“Not in the least, thank you,” I stammered.

A doubtful look flickered over his pensive countenance.

“Are you not my patient?” he asked.

“No,” I answered truthfully.

“But—­I was sent for to a Mrs. Woodward; this was the address, and I was shown in here.”

He was so upset that I hastened to assure him it did not matter in the least; that Mrs. Woodward lived above us, and it was quite, quite all right.  But my comforting protestations profited nothing, and the poor man retired in great confusion, murmuring incoherently.  If I had seen “doctor” on his card I might have been prepared, but who would expect a Colonel to be a doctor?  This confusing India!

Later,

This has been a queer day!  Nothing but alarums and excursions.  G. came to tea and suggested that afterwards we should go for a drive in a tikka-gharry, it being a more amusing mode of conveyance in G’s eyes than her sister’s elegant carriage.  So we drove up and down the Red Road and along the Strand until the darkness came.  It rained this morning—­the first rain I have seen in this dusty land—­making the roads quite muddy and the air damp and cold.