'I did not know they could put such a good glaze on nowadays,' remarked Fitzgerald, yielding the point. 'A first-rate piece of work indeed; does the man live here?' Khush-hâl Beg turned to the speaker breathlessly. 'He is crazy, Huzoor. The Lord destroyed his reason by an accident. The old wall fell on his house one night and killed his daughter. Since then he lives away, where naught can fall, like the crazy one he is.' The stress and hurry of the speech were evident, even though the fat man was still suffering from the stairs. 'Thank the Lord! that's over,' said Dan piously, when the last diminishing tail of escort left them with but one orderly to carry the spoil. 'I ought to have warned you about the _pugree_--but there! you might have done worse--the French clock, for instance. Come! let's strike home across the mound. I want to show you a dodge of mine on the canal cut.' He plunged headlong, after his wont, into professional matters till even George, fresh from college technicalities, could scarcely follow him, and found himself wondering why a man of such vast capacity should have succeeded so indifferently; for Dan Fitzgerald was not a _persona grâta_ at headquarters. To be that, a subordinate often has to conceal his own talents, and this man could not even conceal his faults. Some folk are so self-contained that a burden of blame finds no balance on their shoulders; others are so hospitable that they serve as hold-alls both for friends and foes; and there was plenty of room both for praise and blame in Dan Fitzgerald's excitable Celtic nature. 'What's that?' cried George suddenly. With the best intentions his attention had wandered, for everything in that circle of dun-coloured horizon domed with blue was new to him. Dan paused, listening. An odd rhythmic hum came from the highest hut, which was separated from the others by palisades of plaited tiger-grass shining in the afternoon light like a diaper of gold. 'The potter's wheel!' he cried, his face changing indescribably in an instant. 'Come on, Keene, and let us see the man who made your first bribe!' He gave no time for reply, but turning at right angles through a gap threaded his way past piles of pots and sherds until he ran the sound to earth. Literally to earth--a circle of the solid earth spinning dizzily in front of a man buried to his waist. At least so it seemed at first to George Keene's ignorance of potters and their wheels. A circle, dazzling at its outer edge, clearer at the centre where something beneath a steady curved hand shot up, and bulged; then, as the whirr slackened, sank into a bomb of clay. 'Salaam alaikoom!' came a pleasant voice as the worker sat back in his seat-hole so as to ease his feet. He was a mild-faced old gentleman with nothing remarkable about him save a pair of shifty eyes--the light hazel eyes seen so rarely in a native's face. 'Salaam alaikoom,' returned Dan. 'The little sahib has never seen a wheel worked. Will you show him?'