"And verily it came to pass that one day, entering my humble abode-room, I saw a plague-rat lying suffering from _in extremis_ and about to give up ghost. But having had plague I did not trouble about the fleas that would leave his body when it grew stiff and cold, in search of food. Instead I let it lie there while my food was being prepared, and regretted that it was not beneath the chair of some enemy of mine who had not had plague, instead of beneath my own ... that of Mr. Spensonly for example!... "It was Saturday night. I returned to the office that evening, knowing that Mr. Spensonly was out; and I went to his office-room with idle excuse to the peon sitting in verandah--and in my pocket was poor old rat kicking bucket fast. "Who was to say _I_ put deceasing rat in the Sahib's table-drawer just where he would come and sit all day--being in the habit of doing work on Sunday the Christian holy day (being a man of no religion or caste)? What do I know of rats and their properties when at death's front door? "Cannot rat go into a Sahib's drawer as well as into poor man's? If he did no work on Sunday very likely the fleas would remain until Monday, the rat dying slowly and remaining warm and not in _rigour mortuis_. Anyhow when they began to seek fresh fields and pastures new, being fed up with old rat--or rather not able to get fed up enough, they would be jolly well on the look out, and glad enough to take nibble even at an Englishman! (He! He!) So I argued, and put good old rat in drawer and did slopes. On Monday, Mr. Spensonly went early from office, feeling feverish; and when I called, as in duty bound, to make humble inquiries on Tuesday, he was reported jolly sickish with Plague--and he died Tuesday night. I never heard of any other Sahib dying of Plague in Gungapur except one missionary fellow who lived in the native city with native fellows. "So they can hang me for share in bomb-outrage and welcome (though I never threw the bomb nor made it, and only took academic interest in affair as I told the Judge Sahib)--for I maintain with my dying breath that it was I who murdered Mr. Spensonly and put tongue in cheeks when _Gungapur Gazette_ wrote column about the unhealthy bungalow in which he was so foolish as to have his office. When I reflect that by this time to-morrow I shall be Holy Martyr I rejoice and hope photo will be good one, and I send this message to all the world-- "'Oh be....'" * * * * * Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Gosling-Green, M.P., liked this Pathan gentleman so well after reading his letter and enclosure. Before long they liked him very much less--although they did not know it--which sounds cryptic. § 5. MR. HORACE FAGGIT. "Fair cautions, ain't they, these bloomin' niggers," observed Mr. Horace Faggit, as the train rested and refreshed itself at a wayside station on its weary way to distant Gungapur.