carelessness could be laid to George's charge, now that the potter was there to prove that Azîzan had had the Ayôdhya pot all the time, and that they were there to prove that the pearls had remained in the pot. So much for Chândni and the only possible cause of further action--a woman's wanton cruelty. For the rest, the old Diwân was dead, Khush-hâl seemed to be out of it, and Dalel had everything to lose and nothing to gain by a scandal. Finally, these intrigues were always as a house of cards; remove one support and the whole structure disappeared. 'Nevertheless,' said Dan, looking across the table with a grim smile, 'I'm not going to take you down as a witness to my interview with that she-devil this afternoon. You are too fine for the work, and that's the fact.' 'Can I lend you anything peculiarly barbaric in the way of a knife?' asked Lewis. 'I've a Malay crease in my room which fills most people with terror, though personally I should funk a woorâli dart more than anything.' 'Ah! you may jeer; but 'tis true. Sure! our fineness is at the bottom of half our mistakes in this country. Even in our kindness we treat these people as we would like to be treated ourselves--a poor philanthropy compared to treating them as they would like to be treated. And when we come to mere justice! Why, we might as well give a child who has disobeyed his mother the right to appeal against her in court. What chance would the child have to begin with, and then what good would it do? and what good is our complicated system of procedure save to put power into the hands of the educated few who naturally clamour for more? But there! This has nothing to do with Chândni. She wouldn't care a tinker's dam for what you'd say to her, because you would be regulating yourself by codes and sections instead of by the way she is made. I won't. I don't mind stooping to her level to get my will. So let me go with the old mad potter and his eyes, and see if between us we can't make a settlement. And then, please God, we will have done with the whole bad dream from beginning to end. So if you have three thousand rupees you can spare on a loan, I'll just have them handy in my pocket as a salve to her wounded feelings when I've got my own way.' What really happened at the interview Dan resolutely refused to say. On his return from the bazaar he asked for a whisky and soda and a hot bath to take the taste of it out of soul and body. Yet he returned triumphantly with a written declaration signed by Chândni, stating that she herself had stolen the key from George while he slept.