"No luxuries, you see," said Mr. Appleton, "but I think you’ll find it cosy. I believe there’s a looking-glass somewhere on the premises if you want to shave. That’s a thing I haven’t done for many years; Chunda Beg gives me a trimming every now and then when I’m getting too shaggy. As a follower of the Prophet, he wouldn’t cut his own beard for a pension. He’ll send you up some hot water and soap, and when you’ve had a wash, come in to supper." The menu was not so scanty as Mr. Appleton had led the boys to believe. There was a roast joint that tasted three parts mutton and one part venison--the flesh of an ibex shot by Mr. Appleton himself. The vegetables were mushrooms, onions and lotus beans; the sweets a rice pudding and stewed peaches; and the beverage a kind of elderberry wine diluted with hot water. "You’ve got a good cook, Uncle," said Lawrence, when the khansaman had brought coffee. "We haven’t had so good a meal since we left Rawal Pindi." "Well, Shan Tai does his best. He’s a Chinaman, of course. We grow our own vegetables in a patch of ground down the valley. In fact, we do most things ourselves. The gas is acetylene, made on the spot. Most of the furniture in your room is home-made, as I dare say you noticed. We’re what you may call self-contained." "What rooms have you got below?" asked Bob. "We use the ground floor only for stores. In the dark you didn’t see, I suppose, that the walls are loopholed. The stone’s very thick, and in that little trouble I told you about we found them a capital fortification. The kitchen is outside; the servants have their own out-houses. The cook is Chinese, as I said; the khansaman is a Pathan; there are one or two other fellows whose nationality is an unknown quantity. Chunda Beg is a treasure, as grave as a judge, and as resourceful as a Jack-tar. You’ll take most interest, I expect, in my storekeeper, Ditta Lal, a Bengali--what’s commonly called a Babu. I wager you haven’t spoken to him for more than two minutes before he tells you he is a B.A. of Calcutta University, and he’ll tell you the same thing ten times a day until he chokes." "Why should he choke?" asked Lawrence. "Because he’s getting so disgustingly fat. I really mustn’t raise his screw--he calls it emoluments--any more. When he first came to me he was thin and weedy like many of his kind; but he made himself extremely useful, and I’ve increased his pay rather often. You’d be surprised at the result if you could compare him as he is with what he was. Upon my word, with every rise he swells visibly. I shouldn’t like to say what his waist measurement is now. I told him the other day that I really couldn’t raise him any more, for fear it proved fatal, and he smiled in my face and said, ’Ah, sahib, God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,’ which you won’t beat for a piece of delightful inconsequence."