Published: Pioneer, 30 March 1888; Pioneer Mail, 4 April 1888, The Week's News, 7 April 1888.

Attribution: In Scrapbook 4 (28/4, p 56).

Text: Pioneer.

Notes: RK was looking forward to his fifth and final visit to Simla (21 June– July) when he wrote this piece. It is reprinted in the Martindell–Ballard pamphlets and in Harbord, iv, 2005–9.

Dilsukh, 25th March

Dear Jack – Your handwriting is strange to me, and the contents of your letter stranger still, for, nowadays, few young men consider it necessary to ask the advice of their seniors. You have put in two years of Indian service, and by this time, you should have sold some seven or eight ponies, screwed two or three more, written once at least to your father for an increase of allowance, lost your heart to several pretty girls – I trust, for your own sake, that they were girls – thought seriously about entering the Staff Corps, and backed a friend's bill. To these experiences you now intend to add a season at a Hill station, and demand rules for your conduct there from the 15th of April to the 15th of October.

The latest photograph of you – sent by your mother, for you evidently did not think it worth while to waste one of Bourne and Shepherd's shiniest cabinets in my direction – shows me that, when he is knitted together a little more I shall have every reason to be proud of my sister's son – as a fine animal. You look as if you knew how to wear your clothes, and there is an excusable touch of affection [sic: affectation?] in the strapped watch at your wrist. When you are a little older, Jack, you will know that, in uniform, an officer should be independent of time. But let that pass. You are not a bad-looking boy, and you are extremely satisfied with Lieutenant John McRanamac. I envy you.

To return to your questions. You ask for “tips” about “getting-on” at Hill stations; but I notice that you are particularly careful not to mention the sanitarium which you intend to honour by your presence this hot weather.