I digress. Well, thus my brother grew up not ignorant of the things a
man should know if he is to be a man and not a _babu_, but the woman,
his mother, wept sore whenever he was taken from her, and gave my father
trouble and annoyance as women ever do. And when, at last, she begged
that the boy might enter the service of the Sirkar as a wielder of the
pen in an office in Kot Ghazi, and strive to become a leading
_munshi_[9] and then a Deputy-Saheb, a _babu_ in very fact, my father
was wroth, and said the boy would be a warrior--yea, though he had to
die in his first skirmish and ere his beard were grown. Then the woman
wept and wearied my father until it seemed better to him that she should
die and, being at peace, bring peace. No quiet would he have at Mekran
Kot from my mother and his father, the Jam Saheb, while the woman lived,
nor would she herself allow him quiet at Kot Ghazi. And was she not
growing old and skinny moreover? And so he sent my brother to Mekran
Kot--and the woman died, without scandal. So my brother dwelt
thenceforward in Mekran Kot, knowing many things, for he had passed a
great _imtahan_[10] at Bombay and won a _sertifcut_[11] thereby, whereof
the Jam Saheb was very pleased, for the son of the Vizier had also gone
to a _madresseh_ and won a _sertifcut_, and it was time the pride of the
Vizier and his son were abated.

[7] School.
[8] Mohammedan High School.
[9] Clerk.
[10] Examination.
[11] Certificate.

"Now the son of the Vizier, Mahmud Shahbaz, was Ibrahim--and a mean
mangy pariah cur this Ibrahim Mahmud was, having been educated, and he
hated my brother bitterly by reason of the _sertifcut_ and on account of