Hindoo Holiday Read Online Free PDF Page B

my own mind. Meanwhile, no mongoose having been observed, he had ordered the chauffeur to turn the car off the road, and we were now rocking and bumping over the open country among stones and bushes; but the only life I could see were large black-faced monkeys scampering off with their babies clinging to their stomachs.
    â€œLook!” I said, pointing suddenly. “What’s that?”
    â€œWhere? Where?” he cried, following my direction anxiously.
    Then he leaned back abruptly in the car, and turned his face away.
    â€œA jackal; a very bad omen,” he said gloomily, and then be gan to shake with laughter.
    â€œAm I very silly?” he asked, with pathetic charm.
    â€œI should like to see a mongoose myself,” I replied.
    After this he began to talk of Political Agents in general, and the local one, Major Jenkins, in particular. He was a nice man, he said, no doubt of that, but he had two sides to his nature—he was weak, and overpowered by wanton and wicked men.
    â€œI want to pursue a good policy, but how am I to pursue a good policy when I am overpowered by wanton and wicked men?”
    I had no idea to whom he was alluding, but ventured to suggest that Political Agents were not so powerful as he seemed to think.
    â€œAren’t they merely advisers to you?” I asked.
    â€œBut, my dear sir,” he retorted, “what sort of advice is that when I am obliged to take it?”
    He spoke then of some previous Agent he had known.
    â€œHe was a most . . . cantankerous . . . what is that?”
    â€œIll-tempered, quarrelsome.”
    â€œYes, a most cantankerous man.”
    But he did not find me very interesting on this subject. All I know about Political Agents is that they are usually unpopular with the rulers of the native States, and that there was trouble between His Highness and Major Jenkins over my engagement. For I am receiving a salary as well as my return fare, and I dare say the P.A. considered me a quite unnecessary extravagance, which—no doubt—I am. Mrs. Montgomery gave me some information about all this. Major Jenkins, she said, had not been at all disposed to receive me favorably.
    â€œBut I saw him the other day in Rajgarh,” she said, “and told him you were quite harmless; so it’ll be all right now.” She added that he was “a horrid man and a fool.”
    His Highness turned to the subject of literature. Had I ever read a book called . . . some Latin title . . . “ Quo . . . quo . . .”
    â€œ Quo Vadis? ” I guessed.
    â€œYes, you are right, you are right.” He was very pleased.
    â€œHow do you say it?”
    â€œ Quo Vadis? ”
    â€œYou have read it?”
    â€œYes,” I said. This was a lie; but I felt he must be thinking me a very ill-educated young man considering the number of well-known books I had already confessed to not having read; and I also thought I knew enough about Quo Vadis? to be able to support my lie.
    â€œIt is about Nero,” observed His Highness, as though to make sure.
    â€œI know,” I said.
    â€œA very good book! A very good book! What did it mean about Nero marrying Pythagoras in public?”
    â€œI think you’ve got that wrong,” I said.
    â€œNo, no; I have not got it wrong. It says so.”
    â€œWell,” I replied, after some consideration, “it may mean either that Nero, as a patron, gave Pythagoras in marriage to some young lady; or that he publicly embraced Pythagorean philosophy.”
    â€œBut, my good sir,” said His Highness, “this was not that Pythagoras; this was another Pythagoras, a boy.”
    â€œOh,” I said hastily. “Well, in that case perhaps it means exactly what it says.”
    His Highness simpered into his sleeve.
    â€œNero was a pupil of Seneca’s,” he remarked later. “Why didn’t Seneca overpower him? Was he too strong for