60 REMINISCENCES OF SONEPORE, 



It was, I think, at this meeting that the dumb conjuror 

 took a rise out of old Surgeon-Major Thorp. He had managed 

 to get a rupee out of the tightly shut hand of that fine athlete 

 "Barra" McQueen,' who had been stroke of his boat at 

 Oxford, when the old Doctor shoving out his leg of mutton 

 fist sung out, " Bedad I'll trouble the haythen to get it out 

 of this," but his face was a caution when on opening his 

 hand, he found the dib gone. " Begorra, the divils in the 

 blackguard/' he roared ; " turn him out." Dear old Thorp was 

 a beautiful swearer, and hated natives like poison, but his wife 

 lectured him so about it, that he resolved to reform, and 

 when he got in a rage with his bearer, used to shake his fist at 

 him and say, " Oh you frugal swain, you know what I mean." 

 He used, when in charge of the Mozufferpore gaol, to catch all 

 the indecently clad fakeers, who walked through the town, and 

 have them washed and shaved, and then, clothed in a respect 

 able dhoty, they would be escorted out of bounds by the police. 



One great change struck old visitors forcibly. There 

 was neither a civilians' nor a planters' mess, as in the old 

 days, when all the bachelor administrators joined the former, 

 while the Behar Province seldom turned out fewer than thirty 

 members of the planters' mess, and often a good many more. 

 Old stagers can remember the jolly party of the blues, when 

 sixty have sat down to dinner at their mess. It was remarkable 

 how small the attendance was from Tirhoot. The general 

 management of the indefatigable Secretary was excellent. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



YEAR 1868. 



Early in sixty-eight Teddy Drummond, still Secretary, 

 addressed a round robin to all friends of Sonepore, pointing 

 out that the accommodation, as it then existed, was year by 

 year getting more and more inadequate to hold the ever-in- 

 creasing visitors, and he appealed for funds to enable him to 



