"Now is it Government orders," boasted Sonny, reverting to the precisions and peremptoriness of Hindustani with a wave of his small hand. "So twist and strangle, and if thou dost it not, my father will cause hanging to come to thee." "_Huzoor!_" assented Bisrâm, cheerfully, as he shifted his burden slightly so as to free his left hand. The next instant a purple crimson rope of a thing, circled on itself, settled down upon the neck of a big painted mud tiger, bright yellow with black stripes and fiery red eyes, which one of the native visitors had brought that morning for the magistrate's little son. "Now the Protector of the Poor can pull," said Bisrâm, bearer. "It will not slip." But Sonny's wan little face had perplexity and doubt in it. "But, Bisra, Mai Kâli rides a tiger. She wouldn't stwangle it. Would she, mum? I wouldn't stwangle my pony. I'd wather stwangle the gwoom; wouldn't you, mum? I would. I'd wather like to stwangle Gâmoo." "My dear Sonny!" exclaimed his mother, looking with amused horror at the still, helpless little figure which Bisrâm had brought to her. "You wouldn't murder poor Gâmoo, surely!" Sonny made faces over his quinine, as if that were a matter of much more importance. "'Ess, I would," he said, with his mouth full of sweet biscuits. "I'd stwangle him, and then Mai Kâli would be pleased for a fousand years; and then I'd stwangle Ditto an' Peroo too; so she'd be pleased for a fousand fousand years--wouldn't she, Bisra?" "_Huzoor!_" assented Bisrâm, bearer. "My dear," said Sonny's mother, going back with a somewhat disturbed look to the room where the magistrate, Sonny's father, was busy over crabbed Sanskrit texts and bright-coloured talc pictures; for in his leisure hours he was compiling a Hindu Pantheon for the use of students, "I almost wish Bisrâm would not tell Sonny so many stories about the gods and goddesses. They do such horrid things." The scholar, who in his heart nourished a hope that his son might in due time follow in his footsteps, and, perhaps, gain reputation where his father only found amusement, looked up from his books mildly. "Gods and goddesses always do, my dear. Their morality seldom conforms to that which obtains among their worshippers. I intend to draw general attention to this anomaly. Besides, Sonny will have to learn these things anyhow when he begins Greek and Latin; he will in fact find this previous knowledge of great use. Kâli, for instance, is the terrific form of Durga who, of course, corresponds to the Juno of the Greeks and Romans and the Isis of Egypt. She is also the crescent-crowned Diana, and as Parbutt the Earth-mother Ceres. Under the name of Atma, again, she is 'goddess of souls governing the three worlds,' and so equivalent to Hecate Triformis--"