ehind a nimble Arab mare, to a suburban retreat on
the eastern skirt of the Black Town, where, just beyond a cluster of
mean huts of the _sooa-logue_, the low laboring rabble, I found Karlee's
genteel abode, and was refreshed by the contrast it presented to the
hovel of his next neighbor, whose single windowless apartment, and walls
of alternate rows of straw and reeds, plastered with mud, proclaimed
most unpicturesquely the hard fate of him who springs from the soles of
Brahma's feet. Karlee's walls were of solid clay of substantial
thickness. His floor was raised a foot or two above the ground, and
there was a neatly thatched roof over all, swelling out in an elongated
dome, and oddly resembling an inverted boat. As in the rural districts,
Karlee had fenced in his privacy with a thick hedge of clipped bamboo
surmounting a quadrangular embankment. Before the grateful porch two
beautiful tamarind-trees and a palm bestowed their kindly shade, and in
the hedge the bamboos, with their golden stems and bright green leaves,
rustled cheerfully.

On the other side of the road, and shyly retired from it in a close
bamboo covert, dwelt Karlee's partner in the curiosity and general fancy
line, the sharp sircar, with whom (both being _soodras_,[12] and of the
same sect) his social relations were intimate and free. The sircar,
having thriven under the patronage of more than one rich and liberal
_baboo_,[13] to whose favor he had recommended himself by his business
alertness and his ever-politic compliance, had attained unto the honor
of a brick house of two stories, plastered and whitewashed without and
within, with a flat roof, having a low parapet, and laid with a
rain-proof composition of clay and lime. Though his stairs are narrow,
his veranda is commodious; and when he shall have made his fortune in
the curiosity and general fancy line, he will have wings, with a
central area open to the sky, and a double veranda with a lattice. Then,
his accommodations being sufficiently enlarged, the proudest wish of his
heart shall be gratified in the reunion of his entire family--children
and grandchildren, even uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces--under the
same roof.

As I drove up to Karlee's hedge, and, tossing the reins to my
_syce_,[14] passed under the tamarind-trees to the little porch, the old
man came out to meet me with unwonted precipitation; and, although he
maintained with admirable presence of mind that imperturbable gravi