inish,
perfectly in keeping with the rest of the fittings--a finish that we in
_kutcha_[3] India have failed to catch.

[3] casual: half-finished.

From the Museum go out through the city to the Maharaja's
Palace--skilfully avoiding the man who would show you the Maharaja's
European billiard-room,--and wander through a wilderness of sunlit,
sleepy courts, gay with paint and frescoes, till you reach an inner
square, where smiling grey-bearded men squat at ease and play
_chaupur_[4]--just such a game as cost the Pandavs the fair
Draupadi--with inlaid dice and gayly lacquered pieces. These ancients
are very polite and will press you to play, but give no heed to them,
for _chaupur_ is an expensive game--expensive as quail-fighting, when
you have backed the wrong bird and the people are laughing at your
inexperience. The Maharaja's Palace is gay, overwhelmingly rich in
candelabra, painted ceilings, gilt mirrors, and other evidences of a too
hastily assimilated civilisation; but, if the evidence of the ear can be
trusted, the old, old game of intrigue goes on as merrily as of yore. A
figure in saffron came out of a dark arch into the sunlight, almost
falling into the arms of one in pink. "Where have you come from?" "I
have been to see ----" the name was unintelligible. "That is a lie; you
have _not_!" Then, across the court, some one laughed a low, croaking
laugh. The pink and saffron figures separated as though they had been
shot, and disappeared into separate bolt-holes. It was a curious little
incident, and might have meant a great deal or just nothing at all. It
distracted the attention of the ancients bowed above the _chaupur_
cloth.

[4] something like _parchesi_.

In the Palace-gardens there is even a greater stillness than that about
the courts, and here nothing of the West, unless a critical soul might
take exception to the lamp-posts. At the extreme end lies a lake-like
tank swarming with _muggers_.[5] It is reached through an opening under
a block of zenana buildings. Remembering that all beasts by the palaces
of Kings or the temples of priests in this country would answer to the
name of "Brother," the Englishman cried with the voice of faith across
the water. And the mysterious freemasonry did not fail. At the far end
of the tank rose a ripple that grew and grew and grew like a thing in a
nightmare, and became presently an aged _mugger_. As he neared the
shore, there emerged, the green slime thick upon his ey