that the Maharajah had kept him waiting two
hours and a quarter. Perhaps this occurred to His Highness, and
prevented him from being angry. At all events, as Sonny Sahib
scrambled to his feet in response to a terrified tug from Tooni, he
did not look very angry.

Sonny Sahib saw a little lean old man, with soft sunken black eyes,
and a face like a withered potato. He wore a crimson velvet
smoking-cap upon his head, and was buttoned up to the chin in a
long tight coat of blue and yellow brocade. Above the collar and
below the sleeves of the coat showed the neck and cuffs of an
English linen shirt, which were crumpled and not particularly
clean. The cuffs were so big that the Maharajah's thin little
brown fingers were almost lost in them. The blue and yellow
brocaded coat was buttoned up with emeralds, but the Maharajah
shuffled along in a pair of old carpet slippers, which to Sonny
Sahib were the most remarkable features of his attire. So much
occupied, indeed, was Sonny Sahib in looking at the Maharajah's
slippers, that he quite forgot to make his salaam. As for Tooni,
she was lying flat at their Highnesses' feet, talking indistinctly
into the marble floor.

The little Highness was much pleasanter to look at than his father.
He had large dark eyes and soft light-brown cheeks, and he was all
dressed in pink satin, with a little jewelled cap, and his long
black hair tied up in a hard knot at the back of his neck. The
little Highness looked at Sonny Sahib curiously, and then tugged at
his father's sleeve.

'Let him come with me now, immediately,' said the little Maharajah;
'he has a face of gold.'

The Maharajah sat down, not in his chair--he did not greatly like
sitting in his chair--but on the carpet.

'Whence do you come?' said he to Tooni.

'Protector of the poor, from Rubbulgurh.'

'Where your Highness sent to for us,' added Sonny Sahib. 'Tooni,
why do you pinch me?'

His Highness looked disconcerted for a moment. As a matter of fact
he had known all that Tooni or Sonny Sahib could tell him about
themselves for three years, but he considered it more dignified to
appear as if he knew nothing.

'This is a child of the mlechas,' said the Maharajah, which was not
a very polite way of saying that he was English.

'Protector of the poor, yes.'

'Account to me for him. How old is he?'

'Seven years, great King.'

'And two months, Tooni-ji. Your Highness, may I sit down?'

'As old as the Fol