, and he said to me:--'Mangal Khan,
brandy-_pani do_,' and I filled the glass, and he bent over the table to
strike, and his head fell lower and lower till it hit the table, and his
spectacles came off, and when we--the Sahibs and I myself--ran to lift
him. He was dead. I helped to carry him out. Aha, he was a strong Sahib!
But he is dead and I, old Mangal Khan, am still living, by your favor."

That was more than enough! I had my ghost--a firsthand, authenticated
article. I would write to the Society for Psychical Research--I would
paralyze the Empire with the news! But I would, first of all, put eighty
miles of assessed crop land between myself and that dak-bungalow before
nightfall. The Society might send their regular agent to investigate
later on.

I went into my own room and prepared to pack after noting down the facts
of the case. As I smoked I heard the game begin again,--with a miss in
balk this time, for the whir was a short one.

The door was open and I could see into the room. _Click--click!_ That
was a cannon. I entered the room without fear, for there was sunlight
within and a fresh breeze without. The unseen game was going on at
a tremendous rate. And well it might, when a restless little rat was
running to and fro inside the dingy ceiling-cloth, and a piece of loose
window-sash was making fifty breaks off the window-bolt as it shook in
the breeze!

Impossible to mistake the sound of billiard balls! Impossible to mistake
the whir of a ball over the slate! But I was to be excused. Even when I
shut my enlightened eyes the sound was marvelously like that of a fast
game.

Entered angrily the faithful partner of my sorrows, Kadir Baksh.

"This bungalow is very bad and low-caste! No wonder the Presence was
disturbed and is speckled. Three sets of doolie-bearers came to the
bungalow late last night when I was sleeping outside, and said that it
was their custom to rest in the rooms set apart for the English people!
What honor has the _khansamah_? They tried to enter, but I told them to
go. No wonder, if these _Oorias_ have been here, that the Presence is
sorely spotted. It is shame, and the work of a dirty man!"

Kadir Baksh did not say that he had taken from each gang two annas for
rent in advance, and then, beyond my earshot, had beaten them with the
big green umbrella whose use I could never before divine. But Kadir
Baksh has no notions of morality.

There was an interview with the _khansamah_, but as