officiousness, other people said unpleasant things. Maybe the
Members of Council began it; but, finally, all Simla agreed that
there was "too much Wonder, and too little Viceroy," in that
regime. Wonder was always quoting "His Excellency." It was "His
Excellency this," "His Excellency that," "In the opinion of His
Excellency," and so on. The Viceroy smiled; but he did not heed.
He said that, so long as his old men squabbled with his "dear, good
Wonder," they might be induced to leave the "Immemorial East" in
peace.

"No wise man has a policy," said the Viceroy. "A Policy is the
blackmail levied on the Fool by the Unforeseen. I am not the
former, and I do not believe in the latter."

I do not quite see what this means, unless it refers to an
Insurance Policy. Perhaps it was the Viceroy's way of saying:--
"Lie low."

That season, came up to Simla one of these crazy people with only a
single idea. These are the men who make things move; but they are
not nice to talk to. This man's name was Mellish, and he had lived
for fifteen years on land of his own, in Lower Bengal, studying
cholera. He held that cholera was a germ that propagated itself as
it flew through a muggy atmosphere; and stuck in the branches of
trees like a wool-flake. The germ could be rendered sterile, he
said, by "Mellish's Own Invincible Fumigatory"--a heavy violet-
black powder--"the result of fifteen years' scientific
investigation, Sir!"

Inventors seem very much alike as a caste. They talk loudly,