A silver throne having been wheeled out on the portico by manikin bhearers, the manikin Rajah, attended by his manikin moonshee, and as many manikin courtiers as the tamasha property-man can supply, comes forth in his wooden way, and seats himself on the throne in wooden state; a manikin _hookah-badar_, or pipe-server, and a manikin _chattah-wallah_, or umbrella-bearer, take up their wooden position behind, while a manikin _punkah-wallah_ fans, woodenly, his manikin Highness, and the manikin courtiers dance wooden attendance around. Then manikin ladies and gentlemen come on manikin elephants and horses and camels, or in manikin palanquins, and alight with wooden dignity at the foot of the palace stairs, taking their respective orders of wooden precedence with wooden pomposities and humilities, and all the manikin forms of the customary bore. The manikin courtiers trip woodenly down the grand stairs to meet the manikin guests with little wooden Orientalisms of compliment, and all the little wooden delicacies of the season; and they conduct the manikin Sahibs and Beebees into the presence of the manikin Rajah, who receives them with wooden condescension and affability, and graciously reciprocates their wooden salaams, inquiring woodenly into the health of all their manikin friends, and hoping, with the utmost ligneous solicitude, that they have had a pleasant wooden journey: and so on, manikin by manikin, to the wooden end. Of course, much desultory tomtomry and wild troubadouring behind the curtain make the occasion musical. The audience is complete in all the picturesqueness of mixed baba-logue. In the front row, chattering brown ayahs, gay with red sarees and nose-rings, sit on the floor, holding in their laps pale, tender babies, fair-haired and blue-eyed, lace-swaddled, coral-clasped, and amber-studded. Behind these, on high chairs, are the striplings of three years and upward, vociferous and kicking under the hand-punkahs of their patient bhearers. Tall fellows are these bhearers, with fierce moustaches, but gentle eyes,--a sort of nursery lions whom a little child can lead. On each side are small chocolate-colored heathens, in a sort of short chemises, silver-bangled as to their wrists and ankles, and already with the caste-mark on the foreheads of some of them,--shy, demure younglings, just learning all the awful significance of the word _Sahib_, who have been brought from mysterious homes by fond ayahs, and smuggled in through back-stairs influence, or boldly introduced by the durwan under the glorifying patronage of that terrible Hastings Clive. Back of all are Dhobee, the washerman, and Dirzce, the tailor, and Mehter, the sweeper, and Mussalehee, the torch-boy, and Metranee, the scullion,--and all the rest of the household riff-raffry. There is much clapping of hands, and happy wah-wah-ing, wherefrom you conclude that Hastings Clive's birth-day is at least one good result of his being born at all.