In Old Madras

by B. M. Croker

"You will call it more wonderful still, when you hear that every object you see—they are all dear to me—has been picked up in the Madras Presidency! Oh, yes, you may well stare; and now I'll tell you all about it. Once upon a time—say a hundred and fifty years ago, and even before then—furniture and household goods were imported from England, France, and Holland, by merchants, nabobs, or military adventurers—all more or less rich. As time advanced, those palmy days passed, and the Victorian Age dawned; old, so-called 'rubbish' went out of fashion and fell into disgrace. The new craze had not set in thirty years ago, and you could pick up treasures that it makes my mouth water to think of, in the thieving bazaar, or at Franck's auction rooms in the Mount Road."

"Yes, but you were not here thirty years ago—you were in a perambulator," objected her listener.

"No," she corrected, "a pigtail! I am forty-two. However, Fred was on the spot; even as a young sub. he had a taste for old things. He was well laughed at and called a muff, and an old woman, but he had quite a nice little collection, when I came on the scene. That lovely Empire couch, he rescued from being chopped up for firewood—the poor thing had only two legs. The Chippendale chairs, he routed out of a mouldy old bungalow on the top of Palaveram Hill. I discovered that charming satinwood table, in a dirzee's shop of Blacktown; some of the furniture has made journeys all over the Presidency on bullock-carts when regiments were on the move, and has been battered and cracked and auctioned over and over again, for nearly two centuries!"

"Then I wonder there is a stick left!" exclaimed Mallender.

"Well, yes; of course, some invaluable treasures have gone to boil cooltie, or gram, but many fine seasoned travellers still survive. My collection is my craze, my chief weakness, and my tongue once started cannot stop; every bit has its own history. Those Sèvres vases I bought from a Toda in the Hills; that ugly gilt jar in the same cabinet, I purchased as an act of charity from a beggar, a poor Eurasian woman, and gave her twenty rupees—believing it was brass. Long afterwards it turned out to be solid gold—a bit of loot from Seringapatam. I tried to trace the woman, but she had disappeared. That priceless vase of 'Sang de Bœuf' held pipe-clay in my back verandah! The exquisite dessert service you will eat off to-night, I unearthed at the back of Hadji Kareem's shop in Bangalore, smothered under years of dust, and I'd be ashamed to tell you what I paid for it! I have also a marvellous talisman—oh! I think I hear a motor! Would you mind turning on the light in the big chandelier—another find—tell you about it afterwards. I only have it lit at the last moment, as I cannot endure the glare."

Mallender rose to obey, and the splendid old French piece instantly burst into a blaze that flooded the entire room, and seemed to appropriately herald the approach of a dark-eyed lady, wearing a shimmering gown of blue and silver, and a long rope of pearls—who thus made an involuntary, but impressive stage entrance.

For a moment she halted, and put her hand to her eyes, then murmured with a plaintive smile:

"I declare I am quite dazzled!"

"So are we!" responded Mrs. Tallboys with flattering significance. "Lena, let me introduce Captain Mallender; Geoffrey, this is my old friend Mrs. Villars, who is spending the cold weather with us. You are to take her in to dinner—your seats are on the left."

Here the arrival of the General, his wife and his A.D.C., cut short further explanation. The remainder of the company rapidly poured in, and as Mallender stood by his partner watching the crowd, he was struck by the elegance of the ladies' frocks, their fashionable air, and their diamonds; among men, the military element predominated; from the General's scarlet and bemedalled coat, to uniforms of sombre rifle green or gorgeous Indian cavalry—altogether a gay and goodly gathering.