Strickland was silent. His wife stared helplessly at the child - the soul called out of the Nowhere, that went its own way alone. "Did no man help thee with the lies?" I asked of the groom. "None, Protector of the Poor - not one." "They grew, then?" "As a tale grows in the telling. Alas! I am a very bad man," and he blinked his one eye dole-fully. "Now four men are held at my station on thy account, and God knows how many more at Peshawur, besides the questions at Multan, and my izzat is lost, and the mare has been pack-pony to a wood-cutter. Son of devils, what canst thou do to make amends?" There was just a little break in Strickland's voice, and the man caught it. Bending low, he answered in the abject, fawning whine that confounds right and wrong more surely even than most modern creeds, "Protector of the Poor, is the police service shut to an honest man?" "Out!" cried Strickland, and swiftly as the groom departed he must have heard our shout of laughter behind him. "If you dismiss that man, Strick, I shall engage him. He's a genius," I said. "It will take you months to put this mess right, and Billy Watson won't give you a minute's peace." "You aren't going to tell him?" said Strickland, appealingly. "I couldn't keep this to myself if you were my own brother. Four men held in your district -four or forty at Peshawur - and what was that you said about Multan?" "Oh, nothing. Only some camel men there have been -" "On account of a curb-chain. Oh, my aunt!" "And whose memsahib was thy aunt?" said Adam, with the mango stone in his fist. We began to laugh again. "But here," said Strickland, pulling his face together, "is a very bad child who has caused his father to lose honour before all the policemen of the Punjab." "Oh, they know," said Adam. "It was only for the sake of show that they caught the people. Assuredly they all knew it was bunao [make-up]." "And since when hast thou known?" said the first policeman in India to his son. "Four days after we came here - after the wood-cutter had asked Beshakl of the health of his head. Beshaki all but slew a wood-cutter at that bad-water place." "If thou hadst spoken then, time and money and trouble to me and to others had all been spared. Baba, thou hast done a wrong greater than thy knowledge, and thou hast put me to shame, and set me out upon false words, and broken my honour. Thou hast done very wrong. But perhaps thou didst not think?" "Nay, but I did think. Father, my honour was lost when that happened that - that happened in Juma's presence. Now it is made whole again." And, with the most enchanting smile in the world, Adam climbed on to his father's lap. End of "THE SON OF HIS FATHER" End of "THE DAY'S WORK" - PART I