elers and their touts, and one cannot visit the shop or buy of one of the Lals without being denounced and upbraided for partiality by all the other Lals. "Please come my shop. Please buy my shop. I am only honest man. I am poor man," said one oily tongue, putting his fingers to his mouth in dumb show of rice-eating. "Yes, yes," we said to the importunate as we drove away from the hotel, and a fierce-eyed, viperish-looking Hindu made a flying leap to the other step of the carriage and hissed: "Don't go his shop. He is bad man. He cheat. He lie. His ferozees are all glass, chalk. I speak true. I am honest man. I have true stones. I am poor man. Please buy my shop." An emphatic "Jao!" made him drop away from the carriage step. Winding up his loose end of red shawl, he went back to the door-step and squatted there in apparent fraternity with the wicked rival—both blood-brothers in lying and cheating, both waiting for fresh prey, the tourist the righteous victim for such swindlers in all countries.
After much looking and comparing, a friend of that Indian winter bought a ruby necklace, and as she stowed it away in her inside strong pocket her particular Lal said, "Please, ladyship, do not show any one here in Delhi. Let no man know that I have sold, that you have bought my 'niklass.' Those bad fellows at hotel do something if they know I sell." We strolled for an hour along the Chandni Chauk, when we were met by our servant with a closed carriage and drove to the Ridge. As the horses slowed down for the long hill climb,
