t is asking a good deal."

CHAPTER XX.

IN OLD BOMBAY.

"I never expected it to look like this," remarked Faith in a
dissatisfied tone, as they entered the carriage for their first
explorations in Bombay, a day or so later.

She spoke to the air, perhaps, but her father answered the comment.

"Isn't it fine enough to please you, daughter?" as he took his seat
opposite the two girls in a handsome victoria, that would not have
disgraced the most aristocratic drive in London.

"Fine enough? It's too fine!" put in Hope with emphasis. "It's as
Englishy as Portsmouth itself, so far. We expected to see coolies, and
palanquins, and bungalows, and cobras, and--"

"Well, you need not hanker long after the last-named," laughed her
father, "for there is a snake-charmer this minute, and I don't doubt he
has a fine collection about him somewhere."

"In his boots, perhaps," suggested Faith slily, as they all turned to
gaze at the dark-skinned fellow in dingy white turban and loin-cloth,
who squatted on the sidewalk before one of those high modern buildings
which had excited Faith's comment, a long pipe at his lips and a basket
at his side, from which peeped an ugly flat head with darting tongue.

"Ugh!" she shuddered, turning another way, "I don't care for your
cobras, Hope, and everybody knows that bungalows aren't to be found in
city streets. But as for the coolies and palanquins, of course--"

"You have them both!" laughed the captain, pointing down the narrower
street into which they had just entered.

All laughed with him, while the black bearers trotted by, as suddenly,
from between the curtains of this box-like carriage, out popped a
tennis cap, while a well-known voice shouted a boyish "Hello!" as a
hand was waved in greeting.

"It's Dwight--Hello! Hello!" Hope shouted back, waving her white
parasol vigorously. "Isn't he the greatest boy?"

"I wonder if he'll turn up on that bullock cart, too. He seems
omnipresent!" laughed the captain, as they whirled by. "When are they
off for Poonah?"

"I suppose to-day, but perhaps not till night," returned Faith.

"Did you ever see anything like that? If you call this Englishy, Hope."

"No, I don't. Things are beginning to look quite Indiany, since we
left those fine new streets, I confess."

They were now slowly threading their way among the teeming crowds of a
narrow place where it seemed as if the odd-looking houses upon each
side had emptied all th