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"Stop your havers," said MacTavish, as he deftly swathed my shoulder in bandages; "your master's had enough bad luck for one day anyway. Now, Wilmot, my man, you'll just get into your bed, and you'll bide quiet there till I tell you to get up. You've had a fine shake, and you're not going to be allowed to run the risk of fever."

I did not pass a very comfortable night, as my arm was bandaged up, I was a good deal bruised, and, with my bodily infirmities, my mental troubles had returned in full force. The Indian noises of the night also, which are little regarded when a man is strong and well, were perfectly maddening in my shattered state. Why should there have been such a prolonged festival in the neighbouring Hindoo part of the cantonment, which involved such a continuous charivari of pipes and tom-toms? Why should the kingcrow, locally known as the Scotch nightingale, have done his best to make night hideous with his discordant chatter? And why-oh, why!-should my native servants have held a "tabak's parliament " "tabak's parliament" in the back premises till the small hours, discussing the follies and weaknesses of master, in the lowest of tones it is true, but even then inexpressibly irritating in their unceasing and fitful murmur?

But there is an end of everything. At last "morn broadened on the borders of the dark," the night-prowling mosquito retired to rest for the day, driven away by the cool air of sunrise, which flowed gratefully through the bungalow, and, with Ramasawmy's assistance, I managed to get to the sofa in my sitting-room. Sleep asserted itself, and I dropped off into an easy and refreshing doze.

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Holloa, Padre! Do come in," I shouted. "I'm delighted to see you. Have a cigarette, and tell me how you are getting on."

I knew that the good priest, who was the cantonment agent of the Total Abstinence Society, and fulminated energetically against alcohol in every form, admitted human weakness sufficiently to countenance tobacco, and enjoyed the weed at all times and in every form.

"I hope this isn't a bad business, Wilmot. What's the matter?"

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Oh, I've only had a smash riding, Padre. I shall be all right soon, I hope. But what are you doing paying visits so early?"

"I knew there was nothing going on this morning, and I thought I would find some of you officers at home. We've been very badly off for music at St Peter's at the afternoon services, when we don't have the band to play. The bishop was talking to me about it the other day at his visitation, and suggested that we should get up a fund to buy an organ. Your colonel has given me a hundred rupees towards it, and told me I might ask you all to contribute;

so I am going round to see what I can get out of you. But I won't bother you to-day. I'll wait till you're better, and then, perhaps, you'll assist in what I think is a really good work."

"I'll do as well to-day as any other time, Padre; but you're unlucky in not coming to me last week. I was stupid enough to lose a lot of money at the races the day before yesterday, and I've very little loose cash in consequence."

"That's a pity, Wilmot. I can't understand why you men can't enjoy all the amusements you have without risking your means, and perhaps preventing yourselves from doing some good when you have a chance."

A brilliant thought struck me. I knew that the taxes of the Church had, in old days, been as often paid in kind as in money, and I did not see why I might not revive the custom.

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"Master done give ring to Padre Sahib?" said Ramasawmy, after he had showed my visitor out. Yes, Ramasawmy. He's going to sell it for his church."

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"Master done very clever thing. I speak true word. That ring bringing master bad luck. Now good man got it, bad luck going away."

I did not believe much in the connection between my misfortunes and the ring, but I certainly hoped that my late bad luck would change.

Half an hour later, old MacTavish paid me his promised visit, on his way from his morning duties at the hospital, and proceeded to look at my shoulder, feel my pulse, and generally take stock of my health.

"Well, Wilmot, you're just a deal better than I expected, or indeed than you've any right to be. There's a Providence watches over you daft boys, I'm thinking. Your shoulder's doing nicely, and you've no fever. If you keep quiet till to-morrow, I daresay I'll let you go out for a drive, and you'll be off my list in a week, though you'll have to be careful with your arm for a while."

"That's good hearing, doctor. I'm awfully obliged to you for your care. Won't you stop and have some breakfast?"

"No, no. I've three or four more visits to pay yet, and maybe you'll eat better, if I'm not here to tell you what will disagree with you."

My spirits were rising. The shifting of the bandages on my shoulder, and a certain amount of toilet, had made me much more comfortable, and as I had had little dinner on the previous night, I

prepared to do justice to the breakfast which my butler had brought me from the mess.

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"You can't do better, Skeffy. Help yourself, and open your budget of news."

"Well, the news is the best anyway, and will improve your appetite. I've just come from the race-course. There was a meeting of the stewards this morning about the race for the Maharajah's Cup. It seems that it was suspected something was shady about that horse Songster, and his history was inquired into, and they have the best evidence that he is five years old instead of being four as he was entered, so he carried 4 lb. too little in the race. Of course he has been disqualified, so your horse won after all. I congratulate you on winning the cup and taking all the money out of the lotteries."

What a reprieve! I felt as if I had been relieved from an oppressive and inordinate weight that

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"DEAR CAPTAIN WILMOT,-I was so sorry to hear of your accident last night, and hope you will soon get over it. It may help your recovery to tell you that I have just been riding with Kitty Clover, and we had a long talk about you. I was able to explain a

misunderstanding that seems to have occurred at your ball, and, if you call, I think she will be glad to see you. You have my best wishes.-Yours very sincerely,

"CLARA FORTESCUE."

I believe there must have been some truth in Ramasawmy's ideas about that ring, after all.

TALLEYRAND.

IN the midst of the rumours that on all sides arose on the announcement of the forthcoming 'Memoirs' of Prince Talleyrand, no truer words seem to have been uttered than those whereby M. Jules Simon has characterised the effect produced by the long-deferred publication of the work.1

"Talleyrand," said the gifted French philosopher and critic, "makes as much noise at this present moment as he made at the moment of his death half a hundred years ago-nay, perhaps even more! At the identical hour affirmed by report to have been fixed by his own will for the publication of his own autobiography, other writers from the outside seem to have resolved to furnish the world with their descriptions of his life and his political career. Nor does the one in any way apparently injure the other. The So - called Memoirs,' edited by the Duc de Broglie, diminish in no degree the interest excited by the volumes put forth by M. Pallain and others; and the reason is an obvious one: Talleyrand held more or less all the strings of all the Governments (however various) that successively ruled France for the space of fifty years; he passed with incomparable ease from one to the other, always borne as by necessity to the foremost rank of each, and always, whatsoever the sway of events (or of accident), to outward observation appearing to be their propeller and their guide."

Thus far Jules Simon is right, but there are other causes which make the intense interest attach

I.

ing to Prince Talleyrand both a permanent and a personal one. You may like or dislike what he did or made others do-it is no question of sympathy or antipathy; but you cannot do without him-you cannot ignore him. If you desire to seize the raison d'être of the history of modern times (of your own times, remember, and what immediately preceded and produced them), you are obliged to take cognisance of the deeds and thoughts of the unescapeable Proteus who was a bishop (and a diplomat to boot!) in 1792, a Conventionnel in '97, a Bonapartist Foreign Minister in '98, a Court chamberlain in the "pit full of kings" of Erfurt in 1808, whilst being the indirect collaborator (as French ambassador in England in 1832) of Lord Grey in the campaign of the Reform Bill, after having been the indisputable precursor of Cobden in 1786, the original initiator on the Continent of free trade, and the would-be promoter of cheap food!

These are titles to the interest

of public men whatever may be their countries or their creeds, and, call him Bishop of Autun, or Prince de Benevento, or Duc de Valençay, or by whichever of the many names he may go down to posterity, you will find it quite unavoidable to study the personal character of the man by whose thoughts and opinions the external

'Memoirs,' edited by the Duc de Broglie (Calman Lévy, 1891). 'Correspondence,' edited by M. Pallain (Plon, 1889-91). 'Napoleon at AlexandriaTalleyrand at Erfurt,' by M. Vandal (Plon, 1891).

1 "Mon Petit Journal," Jules Simon, ‘Le Temps,' March 15, 1891.

policy of Europe was so influenced for a long succession of eventful years. This, therefore, makes plain enough why, after a lapse of over fifty-eight years, this man, who might be supposed to have entirely lost touch with the present age, survives, and is in reality an explanation of so much that remains unexplained in the past, and of so much that was fated to be the future of that past, and is in fact our present. Talleyrand is really the thread that binds events together, and for half a century never entirely breaks. He winds through the entire web of political history-one reason whereof being that his intense vitality is for ever equal to itself. For all the years of his mere duration on earth he lives. Except, perhaps, the first fifteen of early youth, his life is ever at its highest. Whenever he acts, rightly or wrongly, it is in the fullest consciousness of what he is doing; his "highest" may be reprehensible, but it is invariably his highest, and you note in him no intellectual hiatus; the faculties of action are for ever on the alert without being on the stretch; they are true capacities, and they generate other and succeeding results. From his first youth to his latest year Talleyrand is a statesman busy with nothing save statecraft and the task of governing nations; knowing the most of men, and getting the utmost to be got out of them at the moment of the most dominant expediency.

As our limits will not admit of a minute research into the various details of so long and perpetually active an existence, we will choose three points of the career of Prince Talleyrand which seem to us to contain the largest amount of what we may term the causalities of the

rest :

:

His early life before the Revolution of 1789, with its passage from the old to the new régime.

His steady preference of civil institutions to military despotisms, leading in the end to the sincere adoption of British parliamentary forms and usages.

His curiously keen insight into the genuine value and characters of the men who were either associated with or opposed to him, and some of whom, to the judgment of less unprejudiced politicians, appear as the perfect opposites of what they proved themselves to be.

Now the 'Memoirs' just published will help us in this respect far less than was supposed, to the accurate knowledge we need, but will in some degree be of more use than has been assumed.

They are, as is now on all hands admitted, not strictly authentic, but they are not distinctly apocryphal. They are of a confirmatory nature, and where borne out by autobiographical testimony are by no means to be disdained. By the side of other more reliable chronicles-whether furnished by the evidence of State Papers or by the assertions of incontestable collective witnesses (in each event duly controlled)—the facts related in the 'Memoirs' give, when sufficiently attested, a manner of actuality, a kind of liveliness, to the narrative, and, as it were, an accent to the precise and duller utterances. For it must never be lost sight of that, on most occasions, Prince Talleyrand has the world for his collaborator, and is made real and unquestionable as much by the words of others as by his own.

Witnesses are everywhere, so that in what they confirm you can with reasonable security consult portions of the

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