Page:Quartette - Kipling (1885).djvu/12

 hardware notions, mostly German, that now find their way to all parts of India. But it would. take a long time to tell you where a native crowd's money goes. Here a pice and there an anna—it totals up when you count it by thousands.

But it was not easy to find out what sort of diversion they like. They are such a placid, patient, tranquil lot it's hard to say what they are thinking about, and harder still to contrive something to wake them up.

To bring in new notions you must fall in with their own ideas as a sort of starting-point. And. in this respect Europe crowds are pretty much the same. It would take a wiser man than you or me to explain why; but what folks like to see and hear best is what they know already, dressed. up with a touch of freshness. Down in Bengal I tried, when I first began, a first-rate illuminated peep-show, with pictures of the capitals of Europe, Vesuvius in eruption, illuminated ballets in gilded halls, and so forth; but it was of no use. What did they know or care about the Place de l'Opera at Paris with the electric light and little carriages moving along?

But my toy railway—a beautiful little model—kept me afloat. A Swiss thing, Sir—one of the most perfect ever made, though it goes by clockwork, and not by steam, as the yokels think when they see the smoke. The fetching point in it is the line of railway and the stations, one at each end of the enclosure, with little figures of the Babu Station-Master, the English lady and gentleman, the Eurasian guard drinking out of a bottle, the Zamindar smoking a hooka, the pariah dogs, and an ekka full of people waiting at the gate. They cluster round this like flies round a sugar-cask; every face expanded in a grin like a doorknocker. And when the little train comes in, and the bell rings, they always roar with glee like the children they are.

There's nothing commoner or better known than men or women; but when you make 'em in marble or wax all the world goes to see them at the British Museum or Madame Tussaud's, One is high; but the other, you say, is low, and. therefore bound to be popular. That was the way I reasoned, so that was the next thing I tried; and I can assure you, Sir, if there's a heartbreaking thing in this country it's wax—on account of the heat, you see. After many trials I was forced to give it up and take to moulded paper—a business that a modeller from Kishengurh