Isa Dás was regarded as a fool by those who could not understand his motives, and by no one more so than by Fath Shah, the Sahib's Mahomedan bearer. "It is only the blind man who tramples on the coin that lies in his path, as if it were not worth the picking up," said the bearer, who had always a sharp eye for his own interest. "Your salary is but ten rupees; if you were clever, you could make it fifty at least." * * I had written thirty; but my more experienced native critic induced me to alter the number to fifty. "There are some gains that prove losses in the end," said Isa Dás, "and some cleverness that turns out to be worse than folly. I do not care to follow the example of Ganesh, the seller of milk." "What was done by Ganesh?" asked the bearer, who, as he sat smoking his hookah, was glad to listen to a story. "Ganesh was the possessor of a rare cow, of which the milk was so rich and good that he was ordered to bring some twice every day to the palace for the special use of the Rajah's little daughter. Ganesh was well paid, yet was he not satisfied with his honest gains. He said to himself one morning, as he was carrying the milk in a brazen vessel on his head, 'I have two seers of milk on my head now; my cow gives less than she gave last week, and my profits will be less. But how easily by adding a little water I could make my two seers into three.'" "He was the son of an owl not to have thought of that before," said Fath Shah. "Is there any seller of milk in all Hindustan so foolish as not to mix it with water?" Isa Dás, without replying, went on with his story. "So Ganesh went on to a little stream that was flowing from a fountain near and filled up his brazen vessel with water; then, with a satisfied mind, carried his three seers' weight to the palace." "Yours is not much of a story," said Fath Shah. "Such things happen everywhere, and on every day of the year." "You have not yet heard the end," said the Christian. "After spending some hours in gossip, and making purchases in the bazaars with the money paid for the milk, Ganesh was returning to his home, when he was suddenly seized by the officers of justice on a charge of murder. The little princess and two of her attendants had been taken violently ill after partaking of the milk. The attendants suffered greatly; the poor little princess died." "How could it have happened!" exclaimed the bearer. "The wretched Ganesh was put to the torture, and in his agonies confessed that he had mixed the milk with water taken from a certain spring. The spring was examined, and a few feet higher up than the place where Ganesh had filled up his vessel was found the bloated body of a dead serpent, whose venom had mixed with and poisoned the water. The Rajah, full of anger and grief at the loss of a favourite child, put the wretched Ganesh to death." "I do not see what your story has to do with taking dasturi, or fingering bribes," said the bearer.