dy,
waiting for him, in his old-fashioned ceremonial robes and ancestral
turban, and Ganesh was by his side, dressed in his master's best suit
of clothes for the occasion. When the Chota Lord Sahib was announced,
Kailas Balm ran panting and puffing and trembling to the door, and led
in a friend of mine, in disguise, with repeated salaams, bowing low at
each step, and walking backward as best he could. He had his old family
shawl spread over a hard wooden chair, and he asked the Lord Sahib to
be seated. He then made a high flown speech in Urdu, the ancient Court
language of the Sahibs, and presented on the golden salver a string
of gold mohurs, the last relics of his broken fortune. The old family
servant Ganesh, with an expression of awe bordering on terror, stood
behind with the scent-sprinkler, drenching the Lord Sahib, touching him
gingerly from time to time with the otto-of-roses from the filigree box.

Kailas Babu repeatedly expressed his regret at not being able to receive
His Honour Bahadur with all the ancestral magnificence of his own family
estate at Nayanjore. There he could have welcomed him properly with due
ceremonial. But in Calcutta he was a mere stranger and sojourner-in fact
a fish out of water.

My friend, with his tall silk hat on, very gravely nodded. I need hardly
say that according to English custom the hat ought to have been removed
inside the room. But my friend did not dare to take it off for fear of
detection; and Kailas Balm and his old servant Ganesh were sublimely
unconscious of the breach of etiquette.

After a ten minutes' interview, which consisted chiefly of nodding the
head, my friend rose to his feet to depart. The two flunkeys in livery,
as had been planned beforehand, carried off in state the string of
gold mohurs, the gold salver, the old ancestral shawl, the silver
scent-sprinkler, and the otto-of-roses filigree box; they placed them
ceremoniously in the carriage. Kailas Babu regarded this as the usual
habit of Chota Lard Sahibs.

I was watching all the while from the next room. My sides were aching
with suppressed laughter. When I could hold myself in no longer, I
rushed into a further room, suddenly to discover, in a corner, a young
girl sobbing as if her heart would break. When she saw my uproarious
laughter she stood upright in passion, flashing the lightning of her big
dark eyes in mine, and said with a tear-choked voice:

"Tell me! What harm has my grandfather done to y