High Proficiency. 119 



never seen a copper of it since. Finding that I could not 

 get the cheque cashed, and hearing that the person in 

 question had gone to Meerut, where a race meeting was 

 being held, I went there, and found him playing the old 

 game he had performed at Calcutta and Lucknow, of 

 plunging in the lotteries. I stopped it pretty quick 

 despite his showing me what "good things" he had on, 

 and which were sure, so he said, to come off; but I 

 didn't " tumble to it," to use a current London expres- 

 sion. We had him subsequently warned off, and since 

 that time, whenever I go to Calcutta, I pay a visit 

 to the Grand Stand on the racecourse and read his 

 name on " the board," just to give me an appetite for 

 breakfast. 



As the hot weather was now coming on, and as I had 

 only my own mare New Broom (late Brown Duchess) 

 to look after, I thought I might with advantage enter 

 myself for the High Proficiency Stakes in Hindi at 

 Calcutta, with Rs. 1500 added by Government; and 

 won easily, after a couple of months' training under our 

 regimental pundit, and a month in Calcutta with that 

 venerable old Bengali, Shiv Naryan, who, having since 

 died, is now, probably, disporting himself on a lotus leaf 

 in the sea of milk {cJiJiirsavinndar) with his namesake. 



