Now at the far end of my garden, the ground slopes toward the public road, and the slope is crowned with a thick shrubbery.  There is a short carriage-road from the house to the Mall, which passes close to the shrubbery.  Next afternoon I saw that Naboth had seated himself at the bottom of the slope, down in the dust of the public road, and in the full glare of the sun, with a starved basket of greasy sweets in front of him.  He had gone into trade once more on the strength of my munificent donation, and the ground was as Paradise by my honoured favour.  Remember, there was only Naboth, his basket, the sunshine, and the gray dust when the sap of my Empire first began.

Next day he had moved himself up the slope nearer to my shrubbery, and waved a palm-leaf fan to keep the flies off the sweets.  So I judged that he must have done a fair trade.

Four days later I noticed that he had backed himself and his basket under the shadow of the shrubbery, and had tied an Isabella-coloured rag between two branches in order to make more shade.  There were plenty of sweets in his basket.  I thought that trade must certainly be looking up.

Seven weeks later the Government took up a plot of ground for a Chief Court close to the end of my compound, and employed nearly four hundred coolies on the foundations.  Naboth bought a blue and white striped blanket, a brass lamp-stand, and a small boy, to cope with the rush of trade, which was tremendous.

Five days later he bought a huge, fat, red-backed account-book, and a glass inkstand.  Thus I saw that the coolies had been getting into his debt, and that commerce was increasing on legitimate lines of credit.  Also I saw that the one basket had grown into three, and that Naboth had backed and hacked into the shrubbery, and made himself a nice little clearing for the proper display of the basket, the blanket, the books, and the boy.

One week and five days later he had built a mud fire-place in the clearing, and the fat account-book was overflowing.  He said that God created few Englishmen of my kind, and that I was the incarnation of all human virtues.  He offered me some of his sweets as tribute, and by accepting these I acknowledged him as my feudatory under the skirt of my protection.

Three weeks later I noticed that the boy was in the habit of cooking Naboth’s mid-day meal for him, and Naboth was beginning to grow a stomach.  He had hacked away more of my shrubbery and owned another and a fatter account-book.

Eleven weeks later Naboth had eaten his way nearly through that shrubbery, and there was a reed hut with a bedstead outside it, standing in the little glade that he had eroded.  Two dogs and a baby slept on the bedstead.  So I fancied Naboth had taken a wife.  He said that he had, by my favour, done this thing, and that I was several times finer than Krishna.  Six weeks and two days later a mud wall had grown up at the back of the hut.  There were fowls in front and it smelt a little.  The Municipal Secretary said that a cess-pool was forming in the public road from the drainage of my compound, and that I must take steps to clear it away.  I spoke to Naboth.  He said I was Lord Paramount of his earthly concerns, and the garden was all my own property, and sent me some more sweets in a second-hand duster.