He was doing his own pleading, and this was not etiquette. "What is your name?" asked the Presence. "Pagal—the mad one," he replied sweetly. "And my caste, the gardener caste. But all are one to me,"—looking round with the gracious patronage of a Queen new come to Queendom, —"all are one. ... At what time should I attend upon my duties as body-servant to the Protector of the homeless. Command me, Presence." Now the imp showed in this the prescience of the diplomat. The Presence had indeed not come at any decision; but seeing a passing thought thus held and clothed in words, he re- cognised it for his own, and—" Come to-morrow," he said; "the punkah in my chambers is a light one: you shall pull it." "I am of the official household of the Presence," said the imp, tongue in cheek; hugging himself with joy, when the tum-tum's back was turned. 

A Chaukidar is a night-watchman. He is reported to have come of a race of thieves, and his chief use is to keep his old fraternity away from your house, for it would not be etiquette for them to thieve where an ex-thief guarded. He walks round the house o' nights, clearing his throat in a manner supposed to be peculiarly safeguarding, and making other hideous noises meant to impress you with a sense of his wakefulness. He also shakes the doors at intervals, and thumps along the verandahs with a heavy stick, and sings snatches of weird songs to enliven his own loneliness, and calls across to his friends in neighbouring gardens, and altogether does his best to dissipate any illusions you may have entertained about "the silence of the sleep-time." But, as I said, there is just that etiquette which protects you and your possessions, or protects them as a rule; for every now and again the Chaukidar does certainly let a thief or two run round your garden while he gives chase (" catch them, sons of foxes!"); and all the house is up and afoot, just to show you how useful he is, and from what he saves you. Well, the Chota Chaukidar, or small Chaukidar, was the son of this night-watchman of ours, and the child's great ambition in life was to be even as his father. He would sleep in the day that he might go the rounds at night. Very amusing was it to hear the pitter-patter of his small feet, and the feeble thud of his little stick, as he followed in his father's wake. 

Every eclipse of sun or moon was carefully noted by the Chota Chaukidar. He was in truth a "religious," as he had said; for, though but a child and exempt from the rigours of Hindooism, he fasted like any devotee. Turning indoors from my garden wanderings one morning, I found him his usual "fruitling." But, with hands clasped tight behind his back, he shook his head wistfully.

"So you care for mangoes no more?" I asked, surprised. "It is not so, Presence," he made answer, "but does not the Presence know that to-day Rahu the Seizer fights with the Sun, and I must stand by and fast and pray that the Sun may win, for if I would buy merit for him, even water may not pass my lips." Then would follow some long story of how Rahu stole the nectar of the gods, and was cut in twain by Vishnu, but revenged himself periodically, thuswise. When "the highest high," our Queen Victoria, was ill, in the same faithful way did my little Chaukidar fast "to win her merit." And the untoward issue never ceased to be a puzzle to him. But, like many other Easterns, he just does not believe in his heart of hearts that she did die. "The tale of her 'going out' was all a banawat, a wicked invention," he confided to me. One day he came to me with a difficulty. "Where does God live ?" he asked. "My brother says He lives in the sky; but I think He must live in the kitchen, for does He not feed us from day to day."

Four little ceremonies preceded Uma's birth. The fifth was performed on the day when she made her primal protest against fife. It was an interesting ceremony this — the Brahmins of the Maratha country called it the Birth Ceremony. Uma's father was fetched by an excited old grandame that he might name the child. "Give it me," he said, and he rocked it awkwardly while it yelled. He was waiting inspiration. Suddenly, a thought — and in his satisfaction with himself he nearly dropped the little bundle, and then clutching at it again, nearly put it down on the iron pan of red-hot coals where its little wrappings were a-warming. But the grandmother saved it in time, and he ran to his wife's bedside. "Mother of my child, I know what name we must give it," he said, and he whispered in her ear. For, till the twelfth day, of those two alone and of the gods is it the secret. So they hid away in their hearts that beautiful name—"Uma." So was called the wife of the god Shiva, the Destroyer. The mother would have named her child after the wife of the Preserver, had she chosen; but her lord explained that in this wicked world it was more necessary to destroy than to preserve. 

When "her clock had sounded eight," as she herself would have put it, the old family priest declared Mera fit for the thread ceremony. This is the formal initiation into Zoroastrianism; a child may then wear her " sudra,"—a dainty white embroidered net garment,—and her "kusthi," the fine thread made of lambs' wool: seventy-two silken strands for the names of the seventy-two angels, and the seventy-two chapters of the sacred book—a strand a name or chapter. The wives and mothers of the priesthood wove it, sitting in their doorways, their faces to a rising or a setting sun, praying many prayers for the unknown "devotee" who might use it. "Let there be light," they said, "on the new little life as it comes: and light, a very flood of light, as it goes. And for the times of darkness let there be memory of the light—memory and faith—the glad assurance that the light will come again, even as it came once . . . light, light and warmth and life." . . . Always they pictured the kind of child who would use the "thread," and the world of shadows being very close to these daughters of the Sun-God, they would "prevent" it with thoughts of good. "Yes! she told the lie, she forgot: what would you, a child? But when this little thread slips through her fingers she will remember her vow of truth.”