as a Ranee that lived at Delhi. Go on, Meeta," and she fell
asleep again while Meeta began the story.

Never had Punch secured the telling of that tale with so little
opposition. He reflected for a long time. The hamal made the
tiger-noises in twenty different keys.

"'Top!" said Punch authoritatively. "Why does n't Papa come in and say
he is going to give me put-put?"

"Punch-baba is going away," said the ayah. "In another week there will
be no Punch-baba to pull my hair any more." She sighed softly, for the
boy of the household was very dear to her heart.

"Up the Ghauts in a train?" said Punch, standing on his bed. "All the
way to Nassick, where the Ranee-Tiger lives?"

"Not to Nassick this year, little Sahib," said Meeta, lifting him on
his shoulder. "Down to the sea where the cocoanuts are thrown, and
across the sea in a big ship. Will you take Meeta with you to
Belait?"

"You shall all come," said Punch, from the height of Meeta's strong
arms. "Meeta and the ayah and the hamal and Bhini-in-the-Garden, and
the salaam-Captain-Sahib-snake-man."

There was no mockery in Meeta's voice when he replied--"Great is the
Sahib's favour," and laid the little man down in the bed, while the
ayah, sitting in the moonlight at the doorway, lulled him to sleep
with an interminable canticle such as they sing in the Roman Catholic
Church at Parel. Punch curled himself into a ball and slept.

Next morning Judy shouted that there was a rat in the nursery, and
thus he forgot to tell her the wonderful news. It did not much matter,
for Judy was only three and she would not have understood. But Punch
was five; and he knew that going to England would be much nicer than a
trip to Nassick.

* * * * *

And Papa and Mamma sold the brougham and the piano, and stripped the
house, and curtailed the allowance of crockery for the daily meals,
and took long council together over a bundle of letters bearing the
Rocklington postmark.

"The worst of it is that one can't be certain of anything," said Papa,
pulling his moustache. "The letters in themselves are excellent, and
the terms are moderate enough."

"The worst of it is that the children will grow up away from me,"
thought Mamma; but she did not say it aloud.

"We are only one case among hundreds," said Papa bitterly. "You shall
go Home again in five years, dear."

"Punch will be ten then--and Judy eight. Oh, how long and long and
long the time will