“What happens when these pigsties catch fire?” “They’re built up again,” say the Police, as though this were the natural order of things. “Land is immensely valuable here.” All the more reason, then, to turn several Hausmanns loose into the city, with instructions to make barracks for the population that cannot find room in the huts and sleeps in the open ways, cherishing dogs and worse, much worse, in its unwashen bosom. “Here is a licensed coffee-shop. This is where your _naukers_ go for amusement and to see nautches.” There is a huge _chappar_ shed, ingeniously ornamented with insecure kerosene lamps, and crammed with _gharriwans_, _khitmatgars_, small store-keepers and the like. Never a sign of a European. Why? “Because if an Englishman messed about here, he’d get into trouble. Men don’t come here unless they’re drunk or have lost their way.” The _gharriwans_--they have the privilege of voting, have they not?--look peaceful enough as they squat on tables or crowd by the doors to watch the nautch that is going forward. Five pitiful draggle-tails are huddled together on a bench under one of the lamps, while the sixth is squirming and shrieking before the impassive crowd. She sings of love as understood by the Oriental--the love that dries the heart and consumes the liver. In this place, the words that would look so well on paper have an evil and ghastly significance. The _gharriwans_ stare or sup tumblers and cups of a filthy decoction, and the _kunchenee_ howls with renewed vigor in the presence of the Police. Where the Dainty Iniquity was hung with gold and gems, she is trapped with pewter and glass; and where there was heavy embroidery on the Fat Vice’s dress, defaced, stamped tinsel faithfully reduplicates the pattern on the tawdry robes of the _kunchenee_. So you see, if one cares to moralize, they are sisters of the same class. Two or three men, blessed with uneasy consciences, have quietly slipped out of the coffee-shop into the mazes of the huts beyond. The Police laugh, and those nearest in the crowd laugh applausively, as in duty bound. Perhaps the rabbits grin uneasily when the ferret lands at the bottom of the burrow and begins to clear the warren.