he Jackal, who had a
very fair knowledge of proverbs, picked up by listening to men round the
village fires of an evening.

"Quite true. So, to make sure, I took care of that puppy while the dogs
were busy elsewhere."

"They were VERY busy," said the Jackal. "Well, I must not go to the
village hunting for scraps yet awhile. And so there truly was a blind
puppy in that shoe?"

"It is here," said the Adjutant, squinting over his beak at his full
pouch. "A small thing, but acceptable now that charity is dead in the
world."

"Ahai! The world is iron in these days," wailed the Jackal. Then his
restless eye caught the least possible ripple on the water, and he went
on quickly: "Life is hard for us all, and I doubt not that even our
excellent master, the Pride of the Ghaut and the Envy of the River----"

"A liar, a flatterer, and a Jackal were all hatched out of the same
egg," said the Adjutant to nobody in particular; for he was rather a
fine sort of a liar on his own account when he took the trouble.

"Yes, the Envy of the River," the Jackal repeated, raising his voice.
"Even he, I doubt not, finds that since the bridge has been built good
food is more scarce. But on the other hand, though I would by no means
say this to his noble face, he is so wise and so virtuous--as I, alas I
am not----"

"When the Jackal owns he is gray, how black must the Jackal be!"
muttered the Adjutant. He could not see what was coming.

"That his food never fails, and in consequence----"

There was a soft grating sound, as though a boat had just touched in
shoal water. The Jackal spun round quickly and faced (it is always
best to face) the creature he had been talking about. It was a
twenty-four-foot crocodile, cased in what looked like treble-riveted
boiler-plate, studded and keeled and crested; the yellow points of his
upper teeth just overhanging his beautifully fluted lower jaw. It
was the blunt-nosed Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut, older than any man in the
village, who had given his name to the village; the demon of the ford
before the railway bridge, came--murderer, man-eater, and local fetish
in one. He lay with his chin in the shallows, keeping his place by an
almost invisible rippling of his tail, and well the Jackal knew that one
stroke of that same tail in the water would carry the Mugger up the bank
with the rush of a steam-engine.

"Auspiciously met, Protector of the Poor!" he fawned, backing at every
word. "A delectable voice wa