"An' my privit imprisshin is," said Mulvaney, getting off the bar and turning his glass upside down, "that, av they had known they wudn't have brought ut home. 'Tis flyin' in the face, firstly av Nature, secon' av the Rig'lations, an' third the will av Terence Mulvaney, to hold p'rades av Thursdays." "Good, ma son!" said Learoyd; "but, young mon, what's t' notebook for?" "'Let be," said Mulvaney; "this time next month we're in the _Sherapis_. 'Tis immortial fame the gentleman's goin' to give us. But kape it dhark till we're out av the range av me little frind Bobs Bahadur." And I have obeyed Mulvaney's order. BEYOND THE PALE Love heeds not caste nor sleep a broken bed. I went in search of love and lost myself.--_Hindu Proverb_. A man should, whatever happens, keep to his own caste, race and breed. Let the White go to the White and the Black to the Black. Then, whatever trouble falls is in the ordinary course of things--neither sudden, alien nor unexpected. This is the story of a man who wilfully stepped beyond the safe limits of decent everyday society, and paid for it heavily. He knew too much in the first instance; and he saw too much in the second. He took too deep an interest in native life; but he will never do so again. Deep away in the heart of the City, behind Jitha Megji's _bustee_, lies Amir Nath's Gully, which ends in a dead-wall pierced by one grated window. At the head of the Gully is a big cow-byre, and the walls on either side of the Gully are without windows. Neither Suchet Singh nor Gaur Chand approve of their womenfolk looking into the world. If Durga Charan had been of their opinion, he would have been a happier man to-day, and little Bisesa would have been able to knead her own bread. Her room looked out through the grated window into the narrow dark Gully where the sun never came and where the buffaloes wallowed in the blue slime. She was a widow, about fifteen years old, and she prayed the Gods, day and night, to send her a lover; for she did not approve of living alone. One day, the man--Trejago his name was--came into Amir Nath's Gully on an aimless wandering; and, after he had passed the buffaloes, stumbled over a big heap of cattle-food. Then he saw that the Gully ended in a trap, and heard a little laugh from behind the grated window. It was a pretty little laugh, and Trejago, knowing that, for all practical purposes, the old _Arabian Nights_ are good guides, went forward to the window, and whispered that verse of "The Love Song of Har Dyal" which begins: Can a man stand upright in the face of the naked Sun; or a Lover in the Presence of his Beloved? If my feet fail me, O Heart of my Heart, am I to blame, being blinded by the glimpse of your beauty? There came the faint _tchink_ of a woman's bracelets from behind the grating, and a little voice went on with the song at the fifth verse: