seventy-five thousand in all; and Tôta Mull got it for building the big tank that won't hold water. If it cost him fifty thousand, may I eat dirt; and I ought to know for I had the contract. It won't last, Huzoor; I know the stuff that went into it."

"Tôta Mull had other services."

"Other services!" echoed Shunker fumbling in his garments, and producing a printed book tied up in a cotton handkerchief. "See my certificates; one from your honour's own hand."

Perhaps the District Officer judged the worth of the others by the measure of his own testimonial, wherein, being then a "griff" of six months' standing, he had recorded Shunker's name opposite a list of the cardinal virtues, for he set the book aside with a sad smile. Most likely he was thinking that in those days his ambition had been a reality, and his liver an idea, and that now they had changed places. "I am glad to see your son looking so well," he remarked with pointed irrelevance. "I hear you are to marry him next month, and that everything is to be on a magnificent scale. Tôta Mull will be quite eclipsed; though his boy's wedding cost him sixty-five thousand,--he told me so himself. Accept my best wishes on the occasion."

"Huzoor! I will give fifteen thou--" British majesty rose gravely with the usual intimation of dismissal, and a remark that it was always gratified at liberality. Shunker Dâs left the presence with his smile thoroughly replaced by a scowl, though his going there had simply been an attempt to save his pocket; for he knew right well that he had not yet filled up the measure of qualification for a Rai Bâhâdur-ship.

While this interview had been going on, another of a very different nature was taking place outside a bungalow on the other side of the road, where Philip Marsden stood holding the rein of his charger and talking to Mahomed Lateef, whose pink-nosed pony was tied to a neighbouring tree.

The old man, in faded green turban and shawl, showed straight and tall even beside the younger man's height and soldierly carriage. "Sahib," he said, "I am no beggar to whine at the feet of a stranger for alms. I don't know the sahib over yonder whose verandah, as you see, is crowded with such folk. They come and go too fast these sahibs, nowadays; and I am too old to tell the story of my birth. If it is forgotten, it is forgotten. But you know me, Allah be praised! You feel my son's blood there on your heart where he fell fighting beside you! Which of the three was it? What matter? They all died fighting. And this one is Benjamin; I cannot let him go. He is a bright boy, and will give brains, not blood, to the Sirkar, if I can only get employment for him. So I come to you, who know me and mine."

Philip Marsden laid his hand on the old man's shoulder. "That is true. Khân sahib. What is it I can do for you?"

"There is a post vacant in the office, Huzoor! It is not much, but a small thing is a great gain in our poor house. The boy could stay at home, and not see the women starve. It is only writing-work, and thanks to the old mullah, Murghub Admed is a real khush nawis (penman). Persian and Arabic, too, and Euclidus, and Algebra; all a true man should know. If you would ask the sahib."

"I'll go over now. No, no, Khân sahib! I am too young, and you are too old."

But Mahomed Lateef held the stirrup stoutly with lean brown fingers. "The old help the young into the saddle always, sahib. It is for you boys to fight now, and for us to watch and cry 'Allah be with the brave!'"

So it happened that as Shunker Dâs drove out of the District Officer's compound, Major Marsden rode in. Despite his scowl, the usurer stood up and salaamed profusely with both hands, receiving a curt salute in return.

British majesty was now in the verandah disposing of the smaller fry in batches. "Come inside," it said, hastily dismissing the final lot. "I've only ten minutes left for bath and breakfast, but you'll find a cigar there, and we can talk while I tub."

Amid vigorous splashings from within Major Marsden unfolded his mission, receiving in reply a somewhat disjointed enquiry as to whether the applicant had passed the Middle School examination, for otherwise his case was hopeless.

"And why, in Heaven's name?" asked his hearer impatiently.

The magistrate having finished his ablutions appeared at the door in scanty attire rubbing his bald head with a towel. "Immutable decree of government."

"And loyalty, family, influence--what of them?"

A shrug of the shoulders,--"Ask some one else. I am only a barrel-organ grinding out the executive and judicial tunes sent down from headquarters."

"And a lively discord you'll make of it in time! But you are wrong. A man in your position is, as it were, trustee to a minor's estate and bound to speak up for his wards."

"And be over-ridden! No good! I've tried it. Oh lord! twelve o'clock and I had a case with five pleaders in it at half-past eleven. Well, I'll bet the four-anna bit the exchange left me from last month's pay, that my judgment will be upset on appeal."

"I pity you profoundly."

"Don't mention it; there's balm in Gilead. This is mail-day, and I shall hear from my wife and the kids. Good-bye!--I'm sorry about the boy, but it can't be helped."

"It strikes me it will have to be helped some day," replied Major Marsden as he rode off.

Meanwhile a third interview, fraught with grave consequences to this story, had just taken place in the Commissariat office whither Shunker Dâs had driven immediately after his rebuff, with the intention of robbing Peter to pay Paul; in other words, of getting hold of some Government contract, out of which he could squeeze the extra rupees required for the purchase of the Rai Bâhâdur-ship; a proceeding which commended itself to his revengeful and spiteful brain. As it so happened, he appeared in the very nick of time; for he found Colonel Stuart looking helplessly at a telegram from headquarters, ordering him to forward five hundred camels to the front at once.

Now the Faizapore office sent in the daily schedules, original, duplicate, and triplicate, with commendable regularity, and drew the exact amount of grain sanctioned for transport animals without fail; nevertheless a sudden demand on its resources was disagreeable. So, as he had done once or twice before in this time of war and rumours of wars, the chief turned to the big contractor for help; not without a certain uneasiness, for though a long course of shady transactions had blunted Colonel Stuart's sense of honour towards his equals, it had survived to an altogether illogical extent towards his inferiors. Now his private indebtedness to the usurer was so great that he could not afford to quarrel with him; and this knowledge nurtured a suspicion that Shunker Dâs made a tool of him, an idea most distasteful both to pride and honour. No mental position is more difficult to analyse than that of a man, who having lost the desire to do the right from a higher motive, clings to it from a lower one. Belle's father, for instance, did not hesitate to borrow cash from monies intrusted to his care; but he would rather not have borrowed it from a man with whom he had official dealings.

Shunker Dâs, however, knew nothing, and had he known would have credited little, of this survival of honour. It seemed impossible in his eyes that the innumerable dishonesties of the Faizapore office could exist without the knowledge of its chief. Bribery was to him no crime; nor is it one to a very large proportion of the people of India. To the