that tongue, and volunteered to be interpreter. In a few moments I
learned that my crime was that I had _touched_ the sweetmeats on the
counter.

"In India, as you who have lived here doubtless know, it is a criminal
offence, punishable by fine or imprisonment, for a non-Hindu person to
defile the food of even the lowest caste man. To touch one sweetmeat in
a trayful defiles the whole baking, rendering it all unfit for the use
of any Hindu, no matter how mean. Knowing nothing of caste and its
prejudices, it was with the greatest difficulty that the _moolah_, who
was trying to help me out of my trouble, could make me comprehend
wherein my wrong-doing lay, and that the English courts, being obliged
in their own interest to uphold and protect the caste practices of the
Hindus, at the risk of another mutiny, could not make any exception in
favour of a stranger unacquainted with Indian customs. So the Englishman
who presided said he would have to inflict a fine, but being a very
young man, not yet hardened to the despotic ways of Eastern life, he
generously paid the fine himself, and gave me a rupee as a present into
the bargain. It was only two shillings, but as I had not had so much
money for months I was as grateful as though it had been a hundred. If I
ever meet him I will requite him, for I owe him all I now possess.

"My case being dismissed, I left the court with the old _moolah_, who
took me to his house and inquired of my story, having first given me a
good meal of rice and sweetmeats, and that greatest of luxuries, a
little pot of fragrant Mocha coffee; he sat in silence while I ate,
ministering to my wants, and evidently pleased with the good he was
doing. Then he brought out a package of _birris_, those little
cigarettes rolled in leaves that they smoke in Bombay, and I told him
what had happened to me. I implored him to put me in the way of