Seated on a chair facing him, his legs very wide apart, a bit of looking-glass in one hand, a brush in the other, Jân-Ali-shân was putting the finishing touches to an elaborate parting. He was otherwise got up to the nines in an old dress-suit, which he had picked up for the half of nothing at an officer's sale. His white tie and shirt-front were irreproachable; he had a flower in his buttonhole. The only discordant note was a reminiscent odour of patchouli. He paused, awestruck--hair-brush and looking-glass severed from each other by the width of his arm-stretch--at the sight of his superior officer in native costume. 'Well! I--am--eternally'--his present and future state was evidently an uncertainty, but he finally said, a trifle doubtfully--'blessed!' Then he rose, and accepted the situation with his usual confidential cheerfulness. 'Beg pardin, sir,' he explained, 'titivatin' for a 'op. The girls like it, an' you likes yourself; so it's all round my 'at for the lot o' us, an' a straight tip to "England expec's every man to do 'is dooty." An' wot was you please to want, sir?' Chris paused in his turn for a second; then followed suit in confidential explanation. 'I want to wash my hands, please. You are wondering how I got here--in--in this dress. I came to the room over there this afternoon, because--my mother is sick, Ellison, and I want to be near her, and see her.' Jân-Ali-shân's face expressed unqualified approval. 'Right you are, sir!' he said. 'I disremember mine, seein' she went out as I come in; but I know this, sir--I've missed 'er all my life--an' shall do, please God, till I die.' He had gone to the washhand-stand and was making elaborate preparations with soap and a clean towel. 'Lor' bless you, sir!' he went on, 'I'd 'ave 'ad cleaner 'ands myself to-day if she'd bin there to smack 'em w'en I was a hinfant. She's powerful for horderin' a man's ways, sir, is a mother.' And as he resumed his interrupted occupation, thus leaving Chris unobserved, he hummed 'My mother bids me bind my hair' with a superfluity of grace-notes. 'And I want also,' went on Chris, recovering his lost sense of dignity under the effects of a nail-brush and a piece of pumice-stone--he had often noticed Jân-Ali-shân's hands and wondered at their tidiness for a working man's--'to find out the state of feeling in the city. From what I hear people are saying--and you must hear a lot too----'