'Bring me more paste, women, and see there be no lumps in it; the last was fit to ruin a body's reputation,' said Lateefa, the kite-maker, as he sate on the ground in one of the arched nooks which surrounded the wide sunlit courtyard of a large native house. It had been a sort of city palace to the dead dynasty, and was now occupied by Jehân Aziz, the Rightful Heir's, family. It was built of stucco, simulating marble; stucco decayed, fast crumbling to dust, so leaving scars, where once there had been ornaments. The speaker was an old man, though his sleek oiled hair, square-cut in the royal fashion just below the ear, showed no streak of grey. On one side of him lay the raw material of his craft; on the other a swift-growing pile of the manufactured article ready for sale in the bazaar, after his master, Jehân Aziz, prince of kite-flyers, should have taken his choice. That Lateefa himself was prince of kite-makers could be judged from the way in which he bent the bamboo slips to a perfect curve, and held them thus by three dabs of paste and a sheet of tissue paper. It was a miracle of dexterity. There were two women in the courtyard, one a girl about sixteen, who was lounging lazily behind Lateefa, the other a woman of sixty, dressed in ragged dirty garments, who was spinning as for dear life an arch or two farther down. After a pause, during which she looked almost appealingly at the girl, the latter rose and limped towards an inner court, for Khôjeeya Khânum was slightly lame; slightly deformed also, owing to her lameness. 'Keep the lumps to our dinners, Auntie Khôjee!' called the girl with a pert titter; 'for what with paste and the kites it makes we good women have scarce flour left to fill our stomachs!' Lateefa, after watching the limp disappear, glanced round at the girl. She was a buxom creature, over-developed for her years, and over-dressed in the cheap finery of Manchester muslin at six _pice_ a yard and German silver earrings at two _annas_ a dozen. 'Thy sort of good woman need never starve, niece Sobrai,' he said (for he was connected by some by way of blood to the Heirs of All Things or Nothing), 'I have told thee that before. There is not a drop of her blood in thee,' he nodded to the inner door. 'I mean no blame; some daughters must favour the father. Indeed, I marvel ever there be so few to do it in this family, since, God knows! we men be debauched enough to outweigh the virtue of the sainted Fâtma herself.' He shook his head and began on a new kite. 'Thou knowest _that_ better than I,' retorted Sobrai sharply; 'though thy memory, Uncle Lateef, can scarce hold the poor souls thou hast injured thereby.'