murderers and plunderers of caravans. When they reached a certain delectable vale in the Nerbudda highlands they stopped and went into quarters for the plundering season. Lutfullah was trapped. He had enlisted for high military adventure and this was the end of it. But the lad's piety and sagacity were his stays in this valley of horror, and when at last, "after an abundantly lucriferous" excursion, the thieves began murdering among themselves, Lutfullah was somehow able to escape over the mountain and come down into the plain to the cottage of an old Shaikh of his acquaintance, whom he found "sitting at breakfast with his family a large trough filled with the coarse flour of the Indian corn boiled in water in the middle, and a cup of sour milk before each of the assembly. The old Shaikh recognized me from a distance and ran and embraced me with great warmth and pleasure. I attempted to offer my humble thanks to him and to inquire after his and his family's health, but the power of articulation was lost. The old man then told me that he had heard of my disappearanceTell me, young man, where have you been? He was astonished to see the torrent of tears which burst forth at his question."

Lutfullah was by now a person of learning and experience, eighteen years old. He was soon to find what we call leverage in the world by apprenticeship to work that was to occupy him, east and west, for many years of his life. He was a linguist by environment and set purpose. As a consequence of his employment by Doctor Rahmatullah he had been thrown for a few days with British soldiers who proffered him strong drink and some of their very strong British language. He learned by the contact thirtyseven English words which he wrote down in the Persian character. He had begun the career of liason specialist. Now then, a man of eighteen, escaped from the thieves' company, it was necessary that he should earn an honest living. A friend of his, Native Agent in those parts, recom

mended him to the Honorable East India Company, and Lutfullah was appointed postmaster under the Honorable Company at an outlying village. He was also, and chiefly, to be intelligence officer at his post, being required to write a letter every day, with all the news of the post, and dispatch it to the nearest Political Agent. Some indication, this, as to how the British did it-native agents, native postmasters and intelligence officers, Political Agents (Britons of extraordinary training and acumen), items in all the intricate system of John Company's government by or without the consent of the governed. Lutfullah, postmaster at Dharampur, at fifteen rupees a month, had entered the Honorable Company's service-he was to spend many years of his life in the furtherance of it, although seldom directly employed. His postmastership at Dharampur lasted but four months. He played at chess a great deal there, and was perhaps a trifle too arrogant in his capacity of British agent. But, relinquishing that obscure post, he was before long taken on as teacher of Persian to a British officer in the North-who passed him over to another British officer. So Lutfullah found himself about the year 1820. From that time, for fifteen years, he was constantly employed as coach to newcomers from the British Isles (especially army men) in Persian, Hindustani, Arabic and Marathi, "from time to time and place to place as their duty obliged and caprice induced them to go." Incidentally, but by the most careful work, he acquired the English language thoroughly well"For eight years I never went to bed without learning ten words of English by heart and reading a few pages of the eminent Dr. Gilchrist's grammatical works with full attention." As coach to the British, Lutfullah had more than a hundred pupils during those fifteen years, "and none of them returned unlaureled from the government examination committees." Here, then, is another indication as to how the British did it.

Before bidding him adieu (we know not where he stood

or what happened to him in the Great Mutiny), we should be glad to exhibit Lutfullah, by his kind permission, in at least two settings; the one showing him most astutely at work as coadjutor in the consolidation of the British power in India; the other giving a glimpse of him as observer of the British at home-he was in London in 1844 and was shocked at the idols he saw in St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey. But space forbids, and we shall finally cite a statement of one of his ablest pupils in endorsement of the man's character and education. Captain Eastwick said: "I cannot take leave of my Munshi, Lutfullah Khan, without recording my deep sense of the value of his services, and the high estimation in which I hold him as friend and preceptor. I have had opportunities of narrowly observing his character at intervals during the last eleven years, and I can conscientiously affirm that, as a native of India, I have seldom met his equal, never his superior, in liberality of sentiment, in the feelings and manners of a gentleman, in an ardent desire of knowledge, and indefatigable industry in its pursuit. I can only add that, while his character remains the same, I shall always be proud to number him amongst my friends." That is one way the British did it, and may they never lose the art.

THE PUMP ROOM

In the Pump-room, so admirably adapted for secret discourse and unlimited confidence.

NORTHANGER ABBEY.

DRIGSBY'S UNIVERSAL REGULATOR*

The professor of philosophy sighed and rose to put on his coat and hat, preparatory to going home. He had planned to spend the afternoon over a volume of Paulsen he had just purchased, but the fates had ruled that he must use a precious hour and a half in the filling in of various blank forms connected with his work in the university.

The reports were now on his desk in an orderly heap. There was the absence report of the week, which required that he copy out the names of all students absent from his classes, together with the day and the class which they had failed to attend, and the professor, being a conscientious man, had added the names of a few who were merely tardy. There were three cards "for the removal of conditions and incompletes" against the records of as many students who had now made their grades in last quarter's work. There was a request to various state boards and officials that he be allowed to journey to a neighboring city at an expense of $8.40 to deliver a lecture for the extension department. The lecture, it was true, was a weekly affair, arranged for long in advance, but the board of regents inscrutably required a separate form for each journey, and when the professor had forgotten on one occasion to fill it out he had suffered a reprimand from the terribly efficient manager, whom he

*This sketch appears simultaneously in the current number of the Midland, but is published here for the benefit of academic sufferers.— Editor Texas Review.

disliked, and of whom he was secretly afraid. Besides these, there was a request from the chairman of his department for a copy of his class list, and since the professor could not afford a stenographer, and the state neglected to furnish him one, he had tapped out the names with two fingers on his rebuilt typewriter. Some of the names were of foreign extraction, peculiarly obnoxious to the asthmatic machine which he possessed. There were also two requests from an overworked committee of his colleagues for reports on his advisees, one of whom, it seemed, had gone on a trip with the basketball team without properly notifying the athletic committee, while the second had fallen, scholastically speaking, into the sere and yellow leaf. The professor sighed, and wondered why he was responsible.

Crowning the pile was a huge service report from the president's office, waiting to be checked over and verified. It contained rows of red spaces for women students, and of blue spaces for men students, and a set of oblong boxes at one end in which somebody had inserted the technical names of the professor's courses, together with much miscellaneous information. It had been writtten up by some clerk. in a beautiful hand (something the professor theoretically approved); but the clerk had unfortunately confused the professor's courses with some taught by a colleague, and the professor therefore took little pleasure in the rows of neat figures in their blue and red sentry boxes. On the reverse of the sheet were spaces for the names of committees on which the professor served-a long roll-and a place for listing courses "announced and not given"-a feature that struck him as being slightly idiotic. But what irritated him. most was a request at the bottom of the page that he list his needs as an instructor. The professor, having grown old and cynical, no longer bothered to fill in this space with the crowded lines of his youthful and ingenuous days, but the sight of that impersonal printed direction still filled him with the same dull resentment. He had left this report for tomor