that is all. But I have noticed, lying at my station below the
ford, that the stairs of the new bridge are cruelly hard to climb, both
for old people and young children. The old, indeed, are not so worthy of
consideration, but I am grieved--I am truly grieved--on account of the
fat children. Still, I think, in a little while, when the newness of the
bridge has worn away, we shall see my people's bare brown legs bravely
splashing through the ford as before. Then the old Mugger will be
honoured again."

"But surely I saw Marigold wreaths floating off the edge of the Ghaut
only this noon," said the Adjutant.

Marigold wreaths are a sign of reverence all India over.

"An error--an error. It was the wife of the sweetmeat-seller. She loses
her eyesight year by year, and cannot tell a log from me--the Mugger of
the Ghaut. I saw the mistake when she threw the garland, for I was lying
at the very foot of the Ghaut, and had she taken another step I might
have shown her some little difference. Yet she meant well, and we must
consider the spirit of the offering."

"What good are marigold wreaths when one is on the rubbish-heap?" said
the Jackal, hunting for fleas, but keeping one wary eye on his Protector
of the Poor.

"True, but they have not yet begun to make the rubbish-heap that shall
carry ME. Five times have I seen the river draw back from the village
and make new land at the foot of the street. Five times have I seen the
village rebuilt on the banks, and I shall see it built yet five times
more. I am no faithless, fish-hunting Gavial, I, at Kasi to-day and
Prayag to-morrow, as the saying is, but the true and constant watcher of
the ford. It is not for nothing, child, that the village bears my name,
and 'he who watches long,' as the saying is, 'shall at last have his
reward.'"

"_I_ have watched long--very long--nearly all my life, and my reward has
been bites and blows," said the Jackal.

"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the Adjutant.

"In August was the Jackal born;
The Rains fell in September;
'Now such a fearful flood as this,'
Says he, 'I can't remember!'"

There is one very unpleasant peculiarity about the Adjutant. At
uncertain times he suffers from acute attacks of the fidgets or cramp
in his legs, and though he is more virtuous to behold than any of the
cranes, who are all immensely respectable, he flies off into wild,
cripple-stilt war-dances, half opening his wings and bobbing his bald
he