ad been a hundred. If I
ever meet him I will requite him, for I owe him all I now possess.

"My case being dismissed, I left the court with the old _moolah_, who
took me to his house and inquired of my story, having first given me a
good meal of rice and sweetmeats, and that greatest of luxuries, a
little pot of fragrant Mocha coffee; he sat in silence while I ate,
ministering to my wants, and evidently pleased with the good he was
doing. Then he brought out a package of _birris_, those little
cigarettes rolled in leaves that they smoke in Bombay, and I told him
what had happened to me. I implored him to put me in the way of
obtaining some work by which I could at least support life, and he
promised to do so, begging me to stay with him until I should be
independent. The day following I was engaged to pull a punkah in the
house of an English lawyer connected with an immense lawsuit involving
one of the Mohammedan principalities. For this irksome work I was to
receive six rupees--twelve shillings--monthly, but before the month was
up I was transferred, by the kindness of the English lawyer and the good
offices of my co-religionist the _moolah_, to the retinue of the Nizam
of Haiderabad, then in Bombay. Since that time I have never known want.

"I soon mastered enough of the dialects to suit my needs, and applied
myself to the study of English, for which opportunities were not
lacking. At the end of two years I could speak the language enough to be
understood, and my accent from the first was a matter of surprise to
all; I had also saved out of my gratuities about one hundred rupees.
Having been conversant with the qualities of many kinds of precious
stones from my youth up, I determined to invest my economies in a
diamond or a pearl. Before long I struck a bargain with an old
_marwarri_ over a small stone, of which I thought he misjudged the
value, owing to the rough cutting. The fellow was cunning and hard in
his dealings, but my superior knowledge of diamonds gave me the
advantage. I paid him ninety-three rupees for the little gem, and sold
it again in a month for two hundred to a young English 'collector and
magistrate,' who wanted to make his wife a present. I bought a larger
stone, and again made nearly a hundred per cent on the money. Then I
bought two, and so on, until having accumulated sufficient capital, I
bade farewell to the Court of the Nizam, where my salary never exceeded
sixteen rupees a month as scribe