st eat st

did die t

ion like Remyo, because one cannot be sure that the rats will not devour the food beforehand, or that the cook will

ing, the limited number of available guests and the restricted nature of the menu. No sane person would dream of invitin

n on "beef days." Should an invitation arrive for another date, grea

vent, the peacock itself being the chief item of the celebration. Our guests arri

he conversation turned upon the relative merits as food of various kinds of fowl. One of our guests,

s not fit for human food,

e midst of which the servants entered,

nd we alluded to it as "goose," but no one could have been for an instant deceived.

even if to do so obliges him to leave all his other work undone. In vain we may try to explain that we prefer to arrange the flowers ourselves, he looks pained, waits till we have completed

n, sometimes in bits of bracken, sometimes in coloured beads or rice, and occasionally in rose petals. When all is fi

the Europeans were invited, and it was intended that the evening should be spent in jovial and merry games

they had fever. We suspected that fever at the time, and suspected it still more next day, when

e unpapered walls, and few of the doors and windows will shut. In this particular house there was no fire place, only a small stove which gave out about as much warmth as a spirit kettle. We all felt grateful to our host and hostess for their

t" which necessitated plenty of movement, and gave every on

d possession of the stove during the operation, so I volunteered for the task. I put the claret, and anything suitable and "Christmassy," I cou

lost interest in it as a drink after the first sip, though they c

joyment of the evening was the great anxiety o

one has just bought, and paid for, say, a set of drawing room chairs, or china ornaments, one does not enjoy seeing the former subjected to the rough usage of a game of "Bumps" nor the latter endange

ad-bare, but it was the only carpet in the station and the recent purchasers regarded it with pride. They looked anxious all th

f the carpet-owners was unbounded. They said nothing, but looked volumes; they did not join in the game, but crawled about the ground round the revellers, busily engaged in picking up the numerous ra

nqualified success, and that the cold and weary guests, plodding home in the early hours of Christmas mo

e one, but as the only available room was the ticket office at the railway station, the only available music the bagp

t a piano; but the repertoire of the combined station is limited, and as every one expects to sing on these occasions (ignorance of time and tune being considered

d it was amusing to watch the expressions of mingled indignation and scorn on the faces of others le

ich would cling to him throughout the song in spite of his endeavours to throw off the encumbrance by means of abrupt changes of tempo, and variatio

ented ourselves with quiet, domestic lives, enlivened but occa