th Muhammad Din. Never again
did he come into my dining-room, but on the neutral ground of the
garden we greeted each other with much state, though our conversation
was confined to '_Talaam, Tahib_' from his side, and '_Salaam,
Muhammad Din_' from mine. Daily on my return from office, the little
white shirt and the fat little body used to rise from the shade of
the creeper-covered trellis where they had been hid; and daily I
checked my horse here, that my salutation might not be slurred over
or given unseemly.

Muhammad Din never had any companions. He used to trot about the
compound, in and out of the castor-oil bushes, on mysterious errands
of his own. One day I stumbled upon some of his handiwork far down
the grounds. He had half buried the polo-ball in dust, and stuck six
shrivelled old marigold flowers in a circle round it. Outside that
circle again was a rude square, traced out in bits of red brick
alternating with fragments of broken china; the whole bounded by a
little bank of dust. The water-man from the well-curb put in a plea
for the small architect, saying that it was only the play of a baby
and did not much disfigure my garden.

Heaven knows that I had no intention of touching the child's work
then or later; but, that evening, a stroll through the garden brought
me unawares full on it; so that I trampled, before I knew,
marigold-heads, dust-bank, and fragments of broken soap dish into
confusion past all hope of mending. Next morning, I came upon
Muhammad Din crying softly to himself over the ruin I had wrought.
Some one had cruelly told him that the _Sahib_ was very angry with
him for spoiling the garden, and had scattered his rubbish, using bad
language the while. Muhammad Din laboured for an hour at effacing
every trace of the dust bank and pottery fragments, and it was with
a tearful and apologetic face that he said, '_Talaam, Tahib_,' when
I came home from office. A hasty inquiry resulted in Imam Din
informing Muhammad Din that, by my singular favour, he was permitted
to disport himself as he pleased. Whereat the child took heart and
fell to tracing the ground-plan of an edifice which was to eclipse
the marigold-polo-ball creation.

For some months the chubby little eccentricity revolved in his humble
orbit among the castor-oil bushes and in the dust; always fashioning
magnificent palaces from stale flowers thrown away by the bearer,
smooth water-worn pebbles, bits of broken glass, and feathers pull