Our letters to Dinapore had gone by post pony overland to Benares, then downriver. The reply from the commandant there arrived in a little over four months and was pleasant and humorous as the occasion called for. Inquiries had been sent on foot. But the memsahib must be patient—after all, India was a somewhat thickly populated country. Servants did not always stay put. A good deal could happen to ten years.
I heard from my letter more than a month later. The reply came from the proprietor of the teahouse, written by a professional scribe in ink of several different colors, containing many allusions to my eminence and glory, but one of the most moving I had ever received. Manu was well remembered and had made it his custom to call monthly there for mail, until his fate had taken him to Pa
