'And the book will go across the Black Water to the houses of your
people, and all the Sahibs will know of me who am eighty years old?'

'All who read the book shall know. I cannot promise for the rest.'

'That is good talk. Call aloud to all who are in the monastery, and I
will tell them this thing.'

They trooped up, faquirs, sadhus, sunnyasis, byragis, nihangs, and
mullahs, priests of all faiths and every degree of raggedness, and
Gobind, leaning upon his crutch, spoke so that they were visibly filled
with envy, and a white-haired senior bade Gobind think of his latter end
instead of transitory repute in the mouths of strangers. Then Gobind
gave me his blessing and I came away.

These tales have been collected from all places, and all sorts of
people, from priests in the Chubara, from Ala Yar the carver, Jiwun
Singh the carpenter, nameless men on steamers and trains round the
world, women spinning outside their cottages in the twilight, officers
and gentlemen now dead and buried, and a few, but these are the very
best, my father gave me. The greater part of them have been published in
magazines and newspapers, to whose editors I am indebted; but some are
new on this side of the water, and some have not seen the light before.

The most remarkable stories are, of course, those which do not appear--
for obvious reasons.