while the marigolds tumbled one way and the tobacco the other. Gobind
laughed, set it up again, and blessed the marigold flowers as he
received the tobacco.

'From my father,' said the child. 'He has the fever, and cannot come.
Wilt thou pray for him, father?'

'Surely, littlest; but the smoke is on the ground, and the night-chill
is in the airs, and it is not good to go abroad naked in the autumn.'

'I have no clothes,' said the child, 'and all to-day I have been
carrying cow-dung cakes to the bazar. It was very hot, and I am very
tired.' It shivered a little, for the twilight was cool.

Gobind lifted an arm under his vast tattered quilt of many colours, and
made an inviting little nest by his side. The child crept in, and Gobind
filled his brass-studded leather waterpipe with the new tobacco. When I
came to the Chubara the shaven head with the tuft atop, and the beady
black eyes looked out of the folds of the quilt as a squirrel looks out
from his nest, and Gobind was smiling while the child played with his
beard.

I would have said something friendly, but remembered in time that if the
child fell ill afterwards I should be credited with the Evil Eye, and
that is a horrible possession.

'Sit thou still, Thumbling,' I said as it made to get up and run away.
'Where is thy slate, and why has the teacher let such an evil character
loose on the streets when there are no police to protect us weaklings?
In which ward dost thou try to break thy neck with flying kites from the