The interrupting gurgle of the _hookah_ gave time for an elaborate wink of a wicked old eye. Possibly this was due to the smoke, for the old voice went on as before almost dolorously. "He had the money-bags, you see, and looked after the rents. But my master, Bun-avatâr--lo! thou shouldst have seen him when he came first--the picture of a man!--they say he was a prince in his own country, but fell into trouble; so came to make his fortune here with Pidar Narâyan--was called _Wazeer_. And let me tell thee, Gu-gu, it means something to be body-servant to a _Wazeer!_ Lo! to think I might have been it still but for that jade, Anâri Begum!" Despite the epithet, he smiled, and his pipe this time gave out quite a chuckling sound. "As ill to keep within walls as a butterfly!" he muttered. "Up and down the garden, in and out the balconies, and the Nawab in two minds to use force, or put her in a sack. For she flouted him. The prettiest ones play that game for power always, and she was Walidâd, her brother's, last hope of favour. Walidâd, _Kanjara_, who had been king's caterer for years before my master, Bun-avatâr-_sahib_, came to make all the court cry sour buttermilk! Walidâd, who had once stood so high, that, in a drunken bout, the Nawab promised him his half-sister to wife. And he got her too! She wept on her wedding day, but we in the lower storey heeded not tears in the upper. For, see you, mine uncle was chief eunuch--we kept the honour thus in the family from generation to generation--so I was in and out, seeing what went on. Until somehow (mine uncle with the bowstring round his neck--as was right, honest man--swore he knew not how) Bun-avatâr-_sahib_ caught a sight of her! Some say it was a plot, from beginning to end, of Walidâd's; others that _his_ enemies feared lest Anâri should succeed. There be balls within balls, even in a plaything, if the workmen are cunning! Anyhow, he saw her. "And I, his body-servant, was able to come and go where Pidar Narâyan hath made his church nowadays. But there! what matters it? 'Tis all one. Love and the Faith are in and out of men's minds like a shelldrake in weedy water; a body cannot tell which way its head may be and which its tail! Nevertheless I felt a choke at my throat, Gu-gu, many a time, as I waited for him in the boat below the balcony; yet in the end, it was not my throat, but mine uncle's. He died in the faith, Gu-gu, cursing women. _His head was that way at the last!_--'Tis mostly so--_he_--_he_--"