Rajah Rustum held his peace; lowered octroi dues a half;
Organised a State Police; purified the Civil Staff;
Settled cess and tax afresh in a very liberal way;

Cut temptations of the flesh-also cut the Bukhshi's1 pay;

Roused his Secretariat to a fine Mahratta fury,

By an Order hinting at supervision of dasturi;2

Turned the State of Kolazai very nearly upside-down;
When the end of May was nigh waited his achievement's

crown.

Then the Birthday Honours came. Sad to state and sad

to see,

Stood against the Rajah's name nothing more than

C.I.E.3!

Things were lively for a week in the State of Kolazai,
Even now the people speak of that time regretfully.

How he disendowed the Gaol-stopped at once the City drain;

Turned to beauty fair and frail-got his senses back again; Doubled taxes, cesses, all; cleared away each new-built thana;4

Turned the two-lakh Hospital into a superb Zenana;

Heaped upon the Bukhshi Sahib wealth and honours manifold;

Clad himself in Eastern garb-squeezed his people as of old. Happy, happy Kolazai! Never more will Rustum Beg Play to catch his Viceroy's eye. He prefers the "simpkin"

peg.

'The Commander in chief. 'Bribes.

of the Indian Empire.

A Companionship of the order

'Police station.

THE STORY OF URIAH

"Now there were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor."

JACK BARRETT went to Quetta
Because they told him to.

He left his wife at Simla

On three-fourths his monthly screw.
Jack Barrett died at Quetta

Ere the next month's pay

Jack Barrett went to Quetta.
He didn't understand
The reason of his transfer

he drew.

From the pleasant mountain-land.
The season was September,
And it killed him out of hand.

Jack Barrett went to Quetta
And there gave up the ghost,
Attempting two men's duty

In that very healthy post;
And Mrs. Barrett mourned for him
Five lively months at most.

Jack Barrett's bones at Quetta
Enjoy profound repose;
But I shouldn't be astonished
If now his spirit knows

The reason of his transfer

From the Himalayan snows.

And, when the Last Great Bugle Call

Adown the Hurnai throbs,

And the last grim joke is entered

In the big black Book of Jobs,

And Quetta graveyards give again
Their victims to the air,

I shouldn't like to be the man
Who sent Jack Barrett there.

THE POST THAT FITTED

Though tangled and twisted the course of true love
This ditty explains,

No tangle's so tangled it cannot improve
If the Lover has brains.

ERE the steamer bore him Eastward, Sleary was engaged

to marry

An attractive girl at Tunbridge, whom he called “my little Carrie.'

Sleary's pay was very modest; Sleary was the other way. Who can cook a two-plate dinner on eight poor rupees a

day?

Long he pondered o'er the question in his scantly furnished quarters

Then proposed to Minnie Boffkin, eldest of Judge Boffkin's daughters.

Certainly an impecunious Subaltern was not a catch,

But the Boffkins knew that Minnie mightn't make another

match.

So they recognised the business and, to feed and clothe the

bride,

Got him made a Something Something somewhere on the Bombay side.

Anyhow, the billet carried pay enough for him to marryAs the artless Sleary put it:-"Just the thing for me and Carrie."

Did he, therefore, jilt Miss Boffkin-impulse of a baser mind? No! He started epileptic fits of an appalling kind.

[Of his modus operandi only this much I could gather:"Pears's shaving sticks will give you little taste and lots of lather."]

Frequently in public places his affliction used to smite

Sleary with distressing vigour—always in the Boffkins' sight. Ere a week was over Minnie weepingly returned his ring, Told him his "unhappy weakness" stopped all thought of marrying.

Sleary bore the information with a chastened holy joy,— Epileptic fits don't matter in Political employ,

Wired three short words to Carrie-took his ticket, packed his kit

Bade farewell to Minnie Boffkin in one last, long, lingering fit.

Four weeks later, Carrie Sleary read—and laughed until she wept

Mrs. Boffkin's warning letter on the "wretched epilept." Year by year, in pious patience, vengeful Mrs. Boffkin sits Waiting for the Sleary babies to develop Sleary's fits.

A CODE OF MORALS

Lest you should think this story true
I merely mention I

Evolved it lately. "Tis a most
Unmitigated misstatement.

NOW Jones had left his new-wed bride to keep his house in order,

And hied away to the Hurrum Hills above the Afghan border, To sit on a rock with a heliograph; but ere he left he taught His wife the working of the Code that sets the miles at naught.

And Love had made him very sage, as Nature made her fair; So Cupid and Apollo linked, per heliograph, the pair.

At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise

At e'en, the dying sunset bore her husband's homilies.

He warned her 'gainst seductive youths in scarlet clad and gold,

As much as 'gainst the blandishments paternal of the old; But kept his gravest warnings for (hereby the ditty hangs) That snowy-haired Lothario, Lieutenant-General Bangs.

'Twas General Bangs, with Aide and Staff, who tittupped on the way,

When they beheld a heliograph tempestuously at play. They thought of Border risings, and of stations sacked and burnt

So stopped to take the message down-and this is what they learnt

"Dash dot dot dot, dot dash, dot dash dot" twice. The General swore.

"Was ever General Officer addressed as 'dear' before?

"My Love,' i' faith! My Duck,' Gadzooks! 'My darling popsy-wop!'

"Spirit of great Lord Wolseley, who is on that mountaintop?"

The artless Aide-de-camp was mute; the gilded Staff were

still,

As, dumb with pent-up mirth, they booked that message from the hill;

For clear as summer lightning-flare, the husband's warning

ran:

"Don't dance or ride with General Bangs-a most immoral man."