MASTER IMPUDENCE 
HEN first I read Phil Robinson’s account 
of the Indian squirrel I thought that the 
writer had painted the little rodent too 
black. That was in the days when I 
lived in Northern India, where the squirrel is to outward 
appearance a highly respectable animal. In that part 
of the world he rarely ventures inside the bungalow. 
Hence I used to regard him as a pretty little creature, 
half bird, half mammal, a four-legged denizen of the 
trees, a quadruped companion of the fowls of the air, a 
light-hearted inhabitant of leafy bowers. 
It is true that I recognized that the squirrel was not 
sweet-tempered, that upon the least provocation he dis- 
played “anger insignificantly fierce,” that his voice was 
not beautiful ; but these drawbacks were, in my opinion, 
more than set off by the fact that he is always amusing 
and pretty to watch. A stay in Madras compelled me 
to change my opinion of the animal, and to admit 
frankly that Phil Robinson was right when he said that 
every action of the squirrel, the very whisking of its 
tail, is an offence. I now regard Sciurus palmarum as 
the most impudent of all “the Tribes on my Frontier.” 
I am aware that many people regard the rascality of 
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