How the blood flew about joyously in his body!  Dear Venus! she makes us pay generally, but who can cavil at the glorious gifts she gives?  As soon as his dinner was disposed of, and all his other servants had retired from the room, Hamilton called his butler, Pir Bakhs, to him, and held a long conference with that intelligent and trustworthy individual.  Hamilton was one of those men that by reason of his strikingly good looks, his charm of manner, his consideration for others, and his complete control over himself that never allowed him to be betrayed into an unjust word or action was greatly liked by every one, and simply worshipped by his servants and all those in any way in a position dependent on him.

When to-night Pir Bakhs was honoured by his confidence, the servant’s whole will and all his keen energies rose with delight to serve his master.  After he had listened in silence to Hamilton’s wishes, he proceeded to make himself master of the whole scheme, detail by detail.

“The Sahib wishes a very beautiful bungalow far out, away from the city?  I know of one house across the desert; my cousin was butler there.  The Sahib went away to England, and the bungalow is to be let furnished.  Have I the Sahib’s permission to go down to bazaar, see my cousin to-night?  I make all arrangements.  I go to-morrow morning; I get cook and all other servants.  I stay there and make all ready for the Sahib to-morrow evening.”

Hamilton smiled at the man’s eagerness to serve him.  He knew well that secretly in his heart his Mahommedan butler had always deplored the severely monastic style in which he had lived, the absence of women in his master’s bungalow, the emptiness of his arms that should have had to bear his master’s children, and that he now was ready to welcome heartily his master’s reformation.

“Could you really do all that, Pir Bakhs?” he asked; “and can you assure me that the house is a good one, and has the compound been well kept up?”

“The house is about the same as this, but not quite so large.  It is in the oasis of Deira, across the desert.  The Sahib knows how well the palms grow there.  My cousin tells me the compound is very large; the Sahib there kept four malis;[1] very fine garden, many English roses there.”

[Footnote 1:  Gardeners.]

“English roses I do not care for, Pir Bakhs,” returned Hamilton with a melancholy smile.  “The roses of the East are far fairer to me.”

The butler bowed with his hand to his forehead.  He took his master’s speech as a gracious compliment to his country.

“Everything grow there,” he answered, spreading out his hands:  “pomegranates, bamboo, mangoes, bananas, sago palm, cocoanut palm, magnolia—­everything.  I go to-morrow, I engage malis; I have all ready for the Sahib.”

“Very well, I trust you with it all.  I shall keep on this house just as it is, and leave most of the servants here.  You and your wives must come out with me, and you engage any other necessary servants and hire any extra furniture you want.”