IT was at Colombo in Ceylon that we met with Ram Nad. I asked for him in the market place, and found him. He was sitting on a cobblestone, and leaning over his basket, asleep.

My acquaintance with Ram Nad began many years ago. Somewhere in my indefinite and unmapped past, I once lived on the island of Ceylon, and knew Ram Nad. He was by faith a Buddhist, by nature a painstaking liar, by profession a medical practitioner, or quasi-physician,—not of the allopathic school, nor of the homeopathic, but of the heteropathic and absurd. But he practised sleight-of-hand tricks and mesmerism in a manner that roused my profound respect. We exchanged informations, and I had a great affection for him in those days.

Even then he looked like a mixture of Abraham and an early Christian martyr, with some resemblance to a sheep.

I took him aboard the Violetta in order to get his advice respecting the orphan-asylums of his native land.

Ram Nad already knew himself to be more vertebrate and sagacious than I, but he did not know Mrs. Ulswater.

The harbour at Colombo is no harbour, but an open roadstead, though quiet at that time.

“ The spicy breezes blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle,

And every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.'

The hymnal says so, but I don't agree with it. Three-quarters of Ceylon is an abomination of swamp, sand, and jungle, with a most pestilential and vile climate; whereas the normal Cingalese person is the mildest, most peaceful and pious agriculturist that's to be found.

Ram Nad wore a blue head cloth. The rest of his clothes were meant to be white, like his beard. He squatted behind his basket. Mrs. Ulswater rocked in her rocking-chair, knitting, looking at Ram Nad as if she did not make out how to begin benefiting him. She examined Ram Nad, who in turn examined Susannah, who in turn was, at that moment, playing jackstraws.

Ram Nad said there were no orphan-asylums in Ceylon that he could truly recommend, which sounded conscientious.

He continued: But for himself, he said, he was a lonely man; desolate and empty was his house of the beautiful gardens; he was desirous of children in his old age. The excellent Mrs. Ulswater—might her benevolence be rewarded! the learned Dr. Ulswater—might his folly and ignorance have been by time corrected!—he hoped these all would understand his immaculate motives. For what said the Great Teacher? “Let parents train their children, and their memories be honoured by the same: let the husband give his wife kindness, together with suitable ornaments and clothes, and let her be a thrifty housekeeper; finally, let the pupils give attention, and the teacher instruct them in knowledge.” The girl, he said, pleased him; therefore it was possible that he might in righteous charity adopt her, instruct her. By a singular accident he had but yesterday taken a solemn vow to adopt a child to his old age; many had been witness to this vow.

Mrs. Ulswater looked thoughtful. She rather wanted Susannah brought up Presbyterian. “He quotes Scripture very well,” she whispered to me. “It sounds queer, but maybe it's his clothes.” But she seemed disturbed, and looked away at Susannah, who played jackstraws.

I reflected vaguely about Ram Nad, on the different kinds of guile he was equal to, and how if he went off with Susannah, the Indian Ocean would seem less entertaining. Mrs. Ulswater appeared worried.

Ram Nad waived the point, or appeared to. He said he would, if we liked, display some marvels for our instruction, while further considering. Then he opened a few common tricks.

He took Mrs. Ulswater's sewing, threw it over the rail into the sea, picked it out of the inner folds of his turban, and returned it. Then he thrust Mrs. Ulswater's knitting needles down my throat and drew them one by one from the pit of my diaphragm. It seemed so, sufficiently so. In fact, it made me feel unwell. He induced Susannah to enter his enormous conical basket, covered her and stirred inside with his hand, with a violent circular motion, as one beats eggs with a spoon—took off the cover, disclosed the interior, and shook it bottom up. No Susannah there!

He covered it, stirred again—eggs and spoons—turned it over, lifted it again. There sat Susannah on the deck, safe but indignant.

“You punched me!” she cried, and then turned distracted to clutch at the small of her back. Mrs. Ulswater came to her help, and unbuttoning her frock took out the jackstraws. They seemed to have been dropped down her neck. Susannah was furious.

Ram Nad next seated himself opposite her, and fell to crooning and spooning with both hands—two spoons, infinite eggs.

Mrs. Ulswater said, “Well, I never!” Even I may possibly have ejaculated, “Ha!”

The eyes of Susannah became fixed, her form rigid. Ram Nad stroked his beard, Susannah the front of her frock. He sighed, she sighed. “Roll!” She rolled; she kept on rolling; she rolled across the deck and brought up in the scuppers, where she struggled to continue rolling. “Roll back!” She rolled back. “Sit up!” She sat up. He fell to crooning and waving—reversed spoons and a reaching after dispersed eggs. Susannah blinked, relapsed, awoke.

Remarkable maid, Susannah, strenuous, decided. She dashed at Ram Nad. She snatched off his head cloth. She flung it in his face. She fled to Mrs. Ulswater and wept loudly in her arms.

Ram Nad looked surprised and partly martyred.

“Nevertheless, I am not displeased,” he said, picking up his head cloth. “I will take her to my house of beautiful gardens.”

“Indeed you won't!” cried Mrs. Ulswater. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Ram Nad bowed his head, pulled his beard, and covered himself with meekness. I suggested to Mrs. Ulswater that there was a Cingalese point of view.

“Surely,” Ram Nad, ineffably mild. “We say no more, excellent Mrs. Ulswater. Other orphans are elsewhere to be found and the vow accomplished. But now, if permitted, I go, and return soon with gifts of fruit plucked in the gardens of my house, that our happiness may be complete as the meeting of long-parted friends, pleasant as to the bee is the honey of the flower.”

It was all gammon about his house. He had no property except his trick outfit in a basket, his moderate but amusing clothes, and a lien on a cobblestone in the market. Mrs. Ulswater observed him quietly. I didn't make out what she thought of his handsome remarks.

He was rowed ashore in the gig, and came back later in a misshaped Cingalese canoe, kilted fore and aft, with two coolies for rowers, who promptly departed. He fished pomegranates and pineapples out of his basket, and was very pleasant. He begged to be allowed to sleep on a deck rug beneath our palatial awning. He said it was the custom of the country. So it was, granted a rug and awning were handy. He talked a number of kinds of gammon, and he knew I knew it was gammon. But, then, I allowed that a Cingalese of his age and acquirements had a right to be mythological in his statements.

Oh, Ram Nad, friend of my earlier days! I'm free to admit your standards of virtuous conduct were ever in some respects obscure, not to say too much for me.