There are no cushions in the
Intermediate class, and the population are either Intermediate, which is
Eurasian, or native, which for a long night journey is nasty, or Loafer, which
is amusing though intoxicated. Intermediates do not buy from refreshment-
rooms. They carry their food in bundles and pots, and buy sweets from the
native sweetmeat-sellers, and drink the roadside water. This is why in hot
weather Intermediates are taken out of the carriages dead, and in all weathers
are most properly looked down upon.
My particular Intermediate happened to be empty till I reached Nasirabad, when
the big black-browed gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered, and, following the
custom of Intermediates, passed the time of day. He was a wanderer and a
vagabond like myself, but with an educated taste for whisky. He told tales of
things he had seen and done, of out-of-the-way corners of the Empire into
which he had penetrated, and of adventures in which he risked his life for a
few days' food.
"If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than the crows
where they'd get their next day's rations, it isn't seventy millions of
revenue the land would be paying--it's seven hundred millions," said he; and
as I looked at his mouth and chin I was disposed to agree with him.
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