Here is Young Sanguine just come out as a
writer after passing a competitive examination
in England. He has youth, energy, acquirements,
and a light purse when he lands at Galle;
and several of his sovereigns vanish before the
hotel-keepers let him go, and the mail-coach
drops him at the Royal Hotel, Colombo, the
capital of Ceylon. He is attached to the colonial
office, asked by a brother civilian to put up with
him for the present, and kindly received by the
members of the service generally. He likes
his prospects; he feels himself a man, and a
man in authority; he franks the covers of official
letters, and signs the letters themselves
sometimes; he tells one to go and he goeth, he says
to another do this, and he doeth it. After a week
or two he has to buy a horse and carriage, and
engage and furnish a house; or else to "chum"
with some friend, and share expenses; and he
soon finds that this is an expensive proceeding.
Sixteen pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence
seems to him a good sum to draw on the thirtieth
of the month, but it goes inordinately fast.
Living is expensive; his head servant, or appoo,
who comes with the most flaming certificates of
character, has marked the griffin for his own;
and the prices of chickens and eggs suddenly
rise enormously in the market on his arrival.
Being fond of figures, he is surprised to find, on
making a calculation at the end of the month,
that on an average he has been eating
sixteen eggs, three large and two small fowls, and
four pounds of beef, per diem: while the
quantity of chillies, onions, turmeric, ginger, and
other curry stuffs he has swallowed would be
enough to fill a decent sized gunny bag or two.
The quantity of liquor he has consumed is
frightful. He has likewise consumed half a bag
of sugar, and five pounds of tea, and coffee without
end, and to his remonstrances his appoo
replies that on the "third of month master
gib dinner two tree gen'man, making vey pine
din'r," and that on the fourteenth Mr. Fry stayed
to breakfast, and that two planter gentlemen
stayed three days in the house. All Sanguine
does, is, to drop some tartar emetic into the
decanter on his sideboard before going to office
next morning. He is of course much concerned
to hear in the afternoon that the "appoo"
has been seized with "a gripe," and other
choleraic symptoms, and has gone to his house,
while the decanter is found to contain a reduced
quantity of liquor. The appoo comes back next
morning, looking very queer, and tells master
"him been very sick yes'rday."

To cut the matter short, Sanguine finds it
rather difficult to make both ends meet; or, to
use a Ceylonese expression, the origin of which
I have never been able to learn, he finds it hard
"to put up his days" on his salary; and unless
he is very frugal, he will overstep its limits.
Promotion is, however, to be the cure for this; and
he begins to look eagerly at the Civil Service List,
to calculate who are before and who are behind
him, and to study the probabilities of a vacancy
occurring. At last a vacancy does occur, and
Sanguine is appointed to an acting magistracy
in the Kandian country on three hundred pounds
a year. Sanguine is delighted; but his joy is
somewhat marred when he finds that to convey
his goods and chattels in bullock-carts to his
new abode, will cost him about thirty pounds.
For this he will receive no allowance, as he goes
"on promotion." (Oh, the cost of these moves
on promotion!) "When he is settled in his new
place of abode, he discovers that the price of
living is very much greater than at head-quarters.
All his supplies have to be conveyed in carts,
except the bare necessaries of life, and his
servants' wages are very high. At the expiration of
eighteen months, the man for whom he is acting
returns to the station, and poor Sanguine has
to pack up his traps and march back to Colombo,
again paying all the expenses of his journey.
The sale of his heavy baggage yields him just
enough to pay his debts and find his way back,
and, when he reaches head-quarters, he has
scarcely a rupee to buy furniture with, and runs
into debt for it inevitably. After a few months at
head-quarters, Sanguine, with a good many of the
happy dreams of boyhood dispelled, is appointed
magistrate of a station in the extreme north of
the island, and as this is a confirmed appointment, worth four hundred and fifty pounds a year,
Sanguine's friends congratulate him heartily
on his good fortune. That is to say, all his
friends who are a step or two higher up the
ladder: for in this life-and-death struggling and
jolting and jockeying for preferment, every
man looks on him as his deadly foe who goes a
step before him, and will pull him down, neck
and crop, if he only gets a chance. So, Sanguine
takes his passage in the colonial steamer, the
Pearl, which, rather unfortunately for him, is
going "South about" the next trip, and he has
to circumnavigate the greater part of the island,
and pay for his board, &c., accordingly, while a
direct voyage would have been preferable in
every way. Nevertheless, he at length reaches
his destination, finds the place cheaper than any
other he has been at, and settles down with the
view of paying off his little debt, which has
swelled to a hundred pounds.

Time goes on for five or six months, when
Sanguine discovers that he has lost his heart to
Miss Sophia, the second daughter of the
Commissioner of Stamps, an old gentleman with a
large family; and as the young lady returns the
compliment, and as papa and mamma have no
objection, Sanguine finds himself a family man
with a nice little boy and a sweet little girl,
before three more years have passed over his
head. Sanguine's little wife is all he can wish,
and so are his children; and he has managed
to get out of debt, and now hopes to save a
little. But one day, when he is near the top of
his class and looking for promotion, Sanguine
finds that pain in the right side rather worse
than usual, and next day it is no better, and
his wife insists on his sending for Dr. Humphrey,
and the doctor looks grave and whispers to
Mrs. S., "Liver," and next day he brings Dr.
Fernando with him, and then they talk together,
and then Mrs. Sanguine is called, and the poor