BABY IN PARTIBUS
This sketch, which may well be termed a beautiful lament over poor Baby, has brought back vividly to many a one touching recollections: a picture in fact which appealed, and continues to appeal, to an audience infinitely wider than that of Anglo-India. The same may be said of the sketches "The Grass-Widow," p. 139; "Mem-Sahib," p. 157, by many considered the best sketch of all; and "Sahib," p. 181. All of them full of that pathos and tenderness akin to, but yet differing widely from, the bantering style of the others, which are also full of allusions and covert references to individuals and affairs of the Anglo-India of thirty years ago.
In "Sahib," however, there are traits of character and other touches taken from the life of one who was—among many other features—a "merry Collector," not yet forgotten by a rapidly decreasing circle of contemporaries. While time and ameliorated conditions have changed the "loathsome Indian cemetery" into something of a garden in which Ali Baba our friend in common would have rejoiced.
No. 11