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_--just such a game as cost the Pandavs the fair Draupadi--with inlaid dice and gaily 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 arrogantly 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 boltholes. 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.