A friend of mine, a lady, when fresh in the country once compromised herself rather astonishingly by lending an ear to their multiloquence, instead of resolutely refusing her attention to all communication but that consisting of "yea, yea," and "nay, nay." She had noted down, in her tablets, the Urdû wherewith to ask whether a thing is procurable, and to order it, if procurable, to be forthcoming, with the appropriate outlandish words for "pullet" and "hoecake," and also those for straightforward answers, affirmative and negative. She was certain that with this lingual accoutrement she could not possibly be taken at a disadvantage. The experience of a few hours, however, unsettled her self-confidence very considerably. She alights at a wayside hostelry. Khudâbakhsh, the chief servant in attendance, arrayed in more or less fine linen, without the purple, surmounted by a turban after the likeness of Saturn and his rings in a pictorial astronomy-book, presents himself, and worships her with lowly salutations. "Is a fowl to be had?"--"Gharîb-parwar," is the prompt reply.--"Is hoecake to be had?"--"Dharm-antâr," officiously cuts in Khudâbakhsh's mate, a low-caste Hindoo; and the principal thinks it unnecessary to respond to the question a second time. Now, what is to be done? What do they mean? Have they fowl and hoecake? Have they not fowl and hoecake? Here, to be sure, is a very _bivium_ of perplexities. The lady at last, with quiet nonchalance, demands the production of a gharîb-parwar and a dharm-antâr, thus unconsciously ordering a "cherisher of the poor" and an "incarnation of justice," the pretty appellations used to designate herself. "Queer things for breakfast!" Khudâbakhsh and his mate mentally reflect, exchanging glances, but without moving a muscle. Breakfast is served, and my friend sees before her just what she meant to order. On one dish reeks the bony contour of a chicken, grinning thankfulness for extinction at every joint, and on a second dish towers a pile of things like small wooden trenchers pressed flat. Of course she has been puzzled, she self-flatteringly concludes, by some less common names of the very common viands which lie displayed before her. By and by, however, she discovers that gharîb-parwar and dharm-antâr are not articles of gastronomic indulgence, at least beyond the borders of those islands of the blest where slices of cold missionary come on with the dessert. When fully aware of her little blunder she marvels, and not unreasonably, that any one should address a lady as "cherisher of the poor" or as "incarnation of justice," rather than as plain "madam;" and she thinks it equally strange that any one should so beat about the bush as to substitute polysyllables of compliment for _hân_, the much more expeditious equivalent of "yes."