unofficial cover was to be delivered, and so asked the first
Englishman he met, who happened to be a man riding down to
Annandale in a great hurry. The Englishman hardly looked, said:
"Hauksbee Sahib ki Mem," and went on. So did the chaprasss,
because that letter was the last in stock and he wanted to get his
work over. There was no book to sign; he thrust the letter into
Mrs. Hauksbee's bearer's hands and went off to smoke with a friend.
Mrs. Hauksbee was expecting some cut-out pattern things in flimsy
paper from a friend. As soon as she got the big square packet,
therefore, she said, "Oh, the DEAR creature!" and tore it open with
a paper-knife, and all the MS. enclosures tumbled out on the floor.

Mrs. Hauksbee began reading. I have said the batch was rather
important. That is quite enough for you to know. It referred to
some correspondence, two measures, a peremptory order to a native
chief and two dozen other things. Mrs. Hauksbee gasped as she
read, for the first glimpse of the naked machinery of the Great
Indian Government, stripped of its casings, and lacquer, and paint,
and guard-rails, impresses even the most stupid man. And Mrs.
Hauksbee was a clever woman. She was a little afraid at first, and
felt as if she had laid hold of a lightning-flash by the tail, and
did not quite know what to do with it. There were remarks and
initials at the side of the papers; and some of the remarks were
rather more severe than the papers. The initials belonged to men
who are all dead or gone now; but they were great in their day.
Mrs. Hauksbee read on and thought calmly as she read. Then the
value of her trove struck her, and she cast about for the best
method of using it. Then Tarrion dropped in, and they read through
all the papers together, and Tarrion, not knowing how she had come
by them, vowed that Mrs. Hauksbee was the greatest woman on earth.