but I found out afterwards that it's a comprehensive term. It includes anything from the picturesque Cashmiri who goes round from door to door like a pedlar with his silks, his silver work, and his embroidery for sale, up to the merchant prince who lives luxuriously in the capital, but yet makes his money out of trade. But, of course, you must never let him know you call him that. You may call a civilian to his face a 'heaven-born,' and he'll probably think even better of you than he did before, but a box-wala would look coldly at you if you called him that to his face. There are lots of other people you may give other appellations to behind their backs that you may not give them to their faces in India. You call a man a 'coolie-catcher' behind his back, but you must take great care to speak of him as an emigration agent when he's present. Fortunately, in the case of a planter, you may call a spade a spade; he's not at all ashamed of planting, I suppose, after all, it's much the same everywhere. In the States you call your parson a 'devil-dodger' when he's nowhere round, but that isn't just the name you accost him by when you meet him on the street. Still, I think it's more common in India than anywhere else, and it makes the conversation full of pitfalls. You never know what your vis-à-vis's sister or cousin or aunt may be, so you have to tread warily when you happen to be a stranger in the land.
As we strolled about the garden, Berengaria chatted in her own inimitable way about the station generally. I feel I ought to stay to explain the
