“What makes you think he is a yogi, dog?” he inquired in a milder tone.  Narain had no answer ready, but stood looking rather stupidly through the door at the room whence the unearthly visitor had so suddenly disappeared.  “Well,” continued Isaacs, “you are more nearly right than you imagine.  The pundit is a bigger yogi than any your idiotic religion can produce.  Never mind, there is an eight anna bit for you, because I said you were asleep when you were not.”  Narain bent to the ground in thanks, as his master turned on his heel.  “Not that he minds being told that he is a pig, in the least,” said Isaacs.  “I would not call a Mussulman so, but you can insult these Hindoos so much worse in other ways that I think the porcine simile is quite merciful by comparison.”  He sat down again among the cushions, and putting off his slippers, curled himself comfortably together for a chat.

“What do you think of Ram Lal?” he asked, when Narain had brought hookahs and sherbet.

“My dear fellow, I have hardly made up my mind what to think.  I have not altogether recovered from my astonishment.  I confess that there was nothing startling about his manner or his person.  He behaved and talked like a well educated native, in utter contrast to the amazing things he said, and to his unprecedented mode of leave-taking.  It would have seemed more natural—­I would say, more fitting—­if he had appeared in the classic dress of an astrologer, surrounded with zodiacs, and blue lights, and black cats.  Why do you suppose he wants you to abandon the tiger-hunt?”

“I cannot tell.  Perhaps he thinks something may happen to me to prevent my keeping the other engagement.  Perhaps he does not approve——­” he stopped, as if not wanting to approach the subject of Ram Lal’s disapprobation.  “I intend, nevertheless, that the expedition come off, and I mean, moreover, to have a very good time, and to kill a tiger if I see one.”

“I thought he seemed immensely pleased at your conversion, as he calls it.  He said that your newly acquired belief in woman was a step towards a better understanding of life.”

“Of the world, he said,” answered-Isaacs, correcting me.  “There is a great difference between the ‘world’ and ‘life.’  The one is a finite, the other an infinite expression.  I believe, from what I have learned of Ram Lal, that the ultimate object of the adepts is happiness, only to be attained by wisdom, and I apprehend that by wisdom they mean a knowledge of the world in the broadest sense of the word.  The world to them is a great repository of facts, physical and social, of which they propose to acquire a specific knowledge by transcendental methods.  If that seems to you a contradiction of terms, I will try and express myself better.  If you understand me, I am satisfied.  Of course I use transcendental in the sense in which it is applied by Western mathematicians to a mode of reasoning which I very imperfectly comprehend, save that it consists in reaching finite results by an adroit use of the infinite.”