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imitate Théophile Gautier, and request my readers, male and female, to remember that special time, when the former had that splendid night, and the latter had the active, big, strong lover, the best of all she ever had as far as fucking goes.
    In this state I walked over to the bungalow which was pointed out to me as that of the brigade major. I was so far fortunate that I met him just as he was going out for a walk before dinner with his smooth English terrier.
    'May I ask whether you are Major Searle, the brigade major, sir?'
    'Yes, I am!'
    'I should have come earlier to report my arrival, sir, but I have travelled so far in dak gharries that I have been lying down all day, and it was so very hot when I got up that I have deferred my coming to report myself until now.'
    'And who may you be, sir?'
    'I am Captain Charles Devereaux, of the First East Folk Regiment of Infantry, and I am on my way to Cherat to join my battalion on promotion.'
    'Oh! indeed! How do you do, Captain Devereaux! I am sorry that I did not know you at first! Will you come in or are you inclined for a little stroll? Will you come over to the mess of the 130th and let me introduce you to the officers? I am afraid you won't get to Cherat quite so soon as you may wish; every blessed machine with wheels has been ordered for a week to come, so that if I were offered lakhs [thousands] of rupees I could not get you a conveyance here - besides which the road from Publi to Shakkote, at the foot of the hill, is rutted and bad for anything heavier than an ekka [one-horse native carriage], and you would have to go up the hill to Cherat either on foot or on horseback when you got there.'
    The whole manner of the man changed when he found I was an officer, and what was more a captain, i.e. just one grade below himself in rank. Had I been a subaltern, he might have kept up a higher degree of hauteur.
    At first I thought my new acquaintance rather an agreeable man. He spoke affably and pleasantly. He asked me about my voyage, my stay in Bombay and journey up country. He spoke about the war which would practically come to an end when the Khandahar expedition had blown Ayub Khan and the conquerors of the ill-fated Marwand to the four winds of Heaven; then he returned to the subject of Nowshera, the dak bungalow and its inmates. He spoke of my well-known (as far as her most secret charms were concerned but otherwise perfectly unknown) mistress and commenced a series of very subtle questions, which, from their very guardedness, showed me that there was one person, and one circumstance, which he was approaching like a cunning cat stalking a sparrow, taking every cover as a guard as he crept up to it. I remembered the evident repugnance my new love had shown when speaking of Major Searle, and I fenced his questions until at last he asked me openly: 'Have you seen a woman, a rather lady-like person, in the bungalow?'
    'I have seen one lady,' I replied, 'but there may be more than that for all I know in the house; I have not been over it, so I cannot tell if the one I have seen is the person you refer to.'
    Well!' said he, 'let me warn you that the woman I refer to is the wife of a non-commissioned officer - she is very pretty, and, I regret to say, about the most abandoned woman in India, if not in the whole world. She must be suffering from nymphomania, for she cannot see a man without she asks him to have her, and as she is really lovely to look at, it is quite on the cards that if she asks a young man, fresh out from England like you, he might accept the proposition, and think that he had fallen in with a very good thing indeed - but - pardon me - let me finish - the penalty for adultery with a European woman in India is two years' imprisonment and a fine of two thousand rupees, and expulsion from India of the woman herself. Already the woman I speak of has rendered herself liable to expulsion hundreds of times; no one has as yet informed against her, but her conduct at