of the classics.
This man's name was, as I have already explained, Abid Ali or Ali Abid,
and in him Bones discovered a treasure beyond price.

Bones had recently built himself a large square hut near the
seashore--that is to say, he had, with the expenditure of a great amount
of midnight oil, a pair of compasses, a box of paints, and a T-square,
evolved a somewhat complicated plan whereon certain blue oblongs stood
for windows, and certain red cones indicated doors. To this he had added
an elevation in the severe Georgian style.

With his plan beautifully drawn to scale, with sectional diagrams and
side elevations embellishing its margin, he had summoned Mojeri of the
Lower Isisi, famous throughout the land as a builder of great houses,
and to him he had entrusted the execution of his design.

"This you shall build for me, Mojeri," said Bones, sucking the end of
his pencil and gazing lovingly at the plan outspread before him, "and
you shall be famous all through the world. This room shall be twice as
large as that, and you shall cunningly contrive a passage so that I may
move from one to the other, and none see me come or go. Also, this shall
be my sleeping-place, and this a great room where I will practise
powerful magics."

Mojeri took the plan in his hand and looked at it. He turned it upside
down and looked at it that way. Then he looked at it sideways.

"Lord," said he, putting down the plan with a reverent hand, "all these
wonders I shall remember."

"And did he?" asked Hamilton, when Bones described the interview.

Bones blinked and swallowed.

"He went away and built me a square hut--just a plain square hut. Mojeri
is an ass, sir--a jolly old fraud an' humbug, sir. He----"

"Let me see the plan," said Hamilton, and his subordinate produced the
cartridge paper.

"H'm!" said Hamilton, after a careful scrutiny. "Very pretty. But how
did you get into your room?"

"Through the door, dear old officer," said the sarcastic Bones.

"I thought it might be through the roof," said Hamilton, "or possibly
you made one of your famous dramatic entries through a star-trap in the
floor--

"'Who is it speaks in those sepulchral tones?
It is the demon king--the grisly Bones!
Bing!'

"and up you pop amidst red fire and smoke."

A light dawned on Bones.

"Do you mean to tell me, jolly old Ham, that I forgot to put a door into
my room?" he asked incredulously, and pe