The next encampment-ground at which we halted was close to a dâk bungalow; and, during the day, there were several arrivals and departures, the travellers merely halting for an hour or so, while some refreshment was got ready. The Lieutenant, who appeared to know everybody in Hindostan (I never met a person who did not know him), contrived, to use his own phrase, to "screw a small chat out of each of them." On one occasion he returned to the tent richer than he left it. He carried in one hand a small basket containing preserved oysters, crystallized apricots, and captains' biscuits, and in the other a stone bottle of Maraschino. Under his arm was a quantity of gauze, which he wanted for a veil, he said. These contributions he had levied from a lady who was going to Muttra, where her husband was an official of some magnitude. She had just returned from England, the Lieutenant informed me, and was looking as blooming as possible. To my question, "Do you know her?" he responded, "Oh yes; she is one of my sixty!"
"Sixty what?"
"First cousins."
"All in India?"
"Every one of them. My good sir, I have at this moment, in the Bengal Presidency alone, upwards of two hundred and twenty relations and connexions, male and female, and every one of them—that is to say, the men and the boys—in the service of the government."
"Is it possible?"
"Yes. What is more, four-fifths of the number are in the civil service. I should have been in the civil service too, only I was sent away from Haileybury for rebellion and card-playing. It is not an easy matter for me to go to any station in these provinces without finding a cousin in it."
"Do you know the assistant-magistrate of Agra?"
"Yes."