WORK OF THE INSPECTOR-GENERAL 219 
may be seen the return of the labourers, remarkable 
for ostentation in reverse proportion to their im- 
portance ; thus, the Member of Council strolls un- 
assumingly to his home, the Secretary may be 
followed by a gold-laced orderly with a discreet 
despatch-box, but if you see a weary youth 
perched on a seventeen-hand charger, followed by 
a procession of coolies laden with tin coffers and 
typewriters, you will know that this is an Under- 
Secretary, who will take no rest during the night, 
lest India should perish, and will drive his reluctant 
neighbours to cards or drink by murdering their 
sleep with the help of the incessant ticking of his 
writing machine. 
In India speech-making is at a discount, and only 
the great are given opportunity to practise this art ; 
the majority must commit their sentiments to 
writing, so that they remain a record against them. 
And it is in writing that the slaves that fill the 
monumental offices of Simla and Calcutta are 
engaged. The vast majority still use the antiquated 
pen, and American systems of saving time with short- 
hand, typewriting, or phonograph, are not in favour. 
Each officer sits entrenched in a zareeba of files, for 
the most part in manuscript of the poorest quality, 
for this is not an art that is made perfect by practice. 
He is directed in the sequence of his labours by slips : 
blue, immediate by day or night; red, urgent, but 
not sufficiently so to interfere with food or sleep ; 
green, early, but only as early as you can; and 
yellow, confidential, being what every clerk has 
read, but what you may not whisper to -your 
colleagues. The wag who proposed a fifth label 
