ssings, but--but--' She stamped her foot at the poor
relation. 'Take up the trays to the house. What is the good of stale
food in the room, O woman of ill-omen?'

'I ha--have borne a son in my time too, but he died,' whimpered the
bowed sister-figure behind the chudder. 'Thou knowest he died! I only
waited for the order to take away the tray.'

'It is I that am the woman of ill-omen,' cried the old lady penitently.
'We that go down to the chattris [the big umbrellas above the
burning-ghats where the priests take their last dues] clutch hard at
the bearers of the chattis [water-jars--young folk full of the pride of
life, she meant; but the pun is clumsy]. When one cannot dance in the
festival one must e'en look out of the window, and grandmothering takes
all a woman's time. Thy master gives me all the charms I now desire
for my daughter's eldest, by reason--is it?--that he is wholly free
from sin. The hakim is brought very low these days. He goes about
poisoning my servants for lack of their betters.'

'What hakim, mother?'

'That very Dacca man who gave me the pill which rent me in three
pieces. He cast up like a strayed camel a week ago, vowing that he and
thou had been blood-brothers together up Kulu-way, and feigning great
anxiety for thy health. He was very thin and hungry, so I gave orders
to have him stuffed too--him and his anxiety!'

'I would see him if he is here.'

'He eats five times a day, and lances boils for my hinds to save
himself from an apoplexy. He is so full of anxiety for thy health that
he sticks to the cook-house door and stays himself with scraps. He will
keep. We shall never get rid of him.'

'Send him here, mother'--the twinkle returned to Kim's eye for a
flash--'and I will try.'

'I'll send him, but to chase him off is an ill turn. At least he had
the sense to fish the Holy One out of the brook; thus, as the Holy One
did not say, acquiring merit.'

'He is a very wise hakim. Send him, mother.'

'Priest praising priest? A miracle! If he is any friend of thine (ye
squabbled at your last meeting) I'll hale him here with horse-ropes
and--and give him a caste-dinner afterwards, my son ... Get up and see
the world! This lying abed is the mother of seventy devils ... my son!
my son!'

She trotted forth to raise a typhoon off the cook-house, and almost on
her shadow rolled in the Babu, robed as to the shoulders like a Roman
emperor, jowled like Titus, bare-headed, with n