"And would your Honour realee do your humble slave the joy of taking repose on thatt bed this veree night? If so, all can be arranged and quicklee too," cried Zynool with enthusiasm. Mr. Rayner was considerably taken aback by the proposal to sleep in a native house. He had intended to travel a station or two down the line when he had finished his business with the Mussulman, and put up at the bungalow of a bachelor friend. But this eager offer of hospitality was not to be lightly refused, following as it did Zynool's irate mood, and he decided that prudence demanded a gracious compliance with the request. Zynool, obviously delighted with the success of his suggestion, hurried off, all importance, to make arrangements for the entertainment of the English guest. The news instantly circulated from basement to house-top that the English sahib was to honour the house of his client, though half-an-hour previously his arrival had seemed to incense its master, and make confusion throughout the household. Mr. Rayner's relations with the Mussulman had been of more than two years' standing. In fact Zynool Sahib had been one of the young barrister's earliest clients, and owing to Rayner's astuteness and daring he had been piloted round at least one ugly corner. If the truth must be told, since then the lawyer had more than once thrust his client into hot water. The pair had taken shares together in various doubtful ventures, at Rayner's instigation, encouraged by high interest, and had been markedly unsuccessful, so that when Zynool informed him that a really good investment was going a-begging in the shape of a piece of land in Puranapore, Rayner lent a ready ear. The land being the property of a Hindu, Zynool explained that he must keep entirely in the background, but was eager, for reasons of his own, to aid the purchase by underhand methods. The result was that the land in question became the property of Alfred Rayner, to pass shortly after into the hands of the Moslem community for double the price which the lawyer gave for it. Thus the mosque which was now such a bone of contention came into being, growing with the rapidity of Jack's beanstalk. Before the Hindus began to realise what a perpetual source of annoyance it was likely to prove, the Mahomedans were shouting their morning and evening prayer-calls from its jerry-built minaret. Zynool rubbed his fat hands with joy at the success of his plot to snub the Hindus, while Rayner's bag of rupees for the price of the site was a godsend to him, and had tided him through many months. But these ill-gotten gains had all melted away during the past season's extravagances. More serious still, the shares, which had seemed so promising, were threatening to pay no further dividends, and calls were looming in the distance. It was this black outlook which had brought the young lawyer to the house of the Mahomedan this afternoon, not indeed to announce to his client the threatened failure of their