Leh Shin went into his back premises and returned with the bowls and the prayer-mat.

“The bed for thyself, O Haj, and the bed of lesser value for thy friend, I shall make shift to procure.  Presently I will send my assistant, the eyes of my encroaching age, to bring what you need.”

“It is well,” said Shiraz, who was seated on a low stool near the door, and who looked with contemplative eyes into the shop.

Leh Shin huddled himself on to the string couch again, and the slow process of bargain-driving began.  Pice by pice they argued the question, and at last Shiraz produced a handful of small coin, which passed from him to the Chinaman.

“I had already heard of thee,” said Leh Shin, scratching his loose sleeves with his long, claw-like fingers.  “But thy friend, the Burman, who spoke beforehand of thy coming, and who still recalls the mixture of his opium pipe, I cannot remember.”  He hunched his shoulders.  “Yet even that is not strange.  My house by the river is a house of many faces, yet all who dream wear the same face in the end,” his voice crooned monotonously.  “All in the end, from living in the world of visions, become the same.”

Shiraz bowed his head with grave courtesy.

“It was also told to me that you served a rich master and have stored up wealth.”

“The way of honesty is never the path to wealth,” responded Shiraz, in tones of reproof.  “So it is written in the Koran.”

Leh Shin accepted the ambiguous reply with an unmoved face.

“Thy friend is under the hand of devils?”

He put the remark as an idle question.

“He is tormented,” replied Shiraz, pulling at his beard.  “He is much driven by thoughts of evil, committed, such is his dream, by another than himself; and yet the Sirkar hath said that the crime was his own.  The ways of Allah are veiled, and Mah Myo is without doubt no longer reasonable; yet he is my friend, and doth greatly profit thereby.”

“Ah, ah,” said the Chinaman, placing a hubble-bubble before his guest, who condescended to shut the mouthpiece in under his long moustache, while he sat silently for nearly half an hour.

“Dost thou sell beautiful things, Leh Shin?” he asked.  “I have a gift to bestow, and my mind troubles me.  The Lady Sahib of my late master suffered misfortune.  She was robbed by some unknown son of a jackal, and thereby lost jewels, the value of which was said to be great, though I know not of the value of such things.”

Leh Shin curled his bare toes on the edge of his bed and looked at them with a great appearance of interest.

“Was the thief taken, O son of a Prophet?”

“He was not.  I have cried in the veranda, to see the Lady Sahib’s sorrow, and I have also prayed and made many offerings at the Mosque, but the thief escaped.  Now that my service with the Lord Sahib is finished, and as he has assisted my poverty with small gifts, I would like to make a present to the Lady Sahib.  Some trifling thing, costing a small sum in rupees, for her grief was indeed great, and it may avail to console her sorrow.”