"O! most almighty wictoria, V.R., reg. britannicorum (V.I., Kaiser-i-Hind), please admit bearer to privileges of praising God on the little drum as occasion befitteth, and your petitioner will ever pray," etc.

It was written on a scrap of foreign paper duly stamped as a petition, and it did not need the interpolation of imperial titles to prove that this was not by any means its first appearance in court. To be plain, it had an "ancient and a fishlike smell," suggestive of many years' acquaintance with dirty humanity. I looked at the man who had presented it--a very ordinary fakeer, standing with hands folded humbly--and was struck by the wistful expectancy in his face. It was at once hopeful yet hopeless. Turning to the court-reader for explanation, I found a decorous smile flowing round the circle of squatting clerks. It was evidently an old-established joke.

"He is damnably noiseful man, Sir," remarked my sarishtidar, cheerfully, "and his place of sitting close to Deputy-Commissioner's bungalow. Thus European officers object; so it is always na-munzoor" (refused).

The sound of the familiar formula drove the hope from the old man's face; his thin shoulders seemed to droop, but he said nothing.

"How long has this been going on?" I asked.

"Fourteen years, Sir. Always on transference of officers, and it is always na-munzoor." He dipped his pen in the ink, gave it the premonitory flick.

"Munzoor" (granted), said I, in a sudden decision. "Munzoor during the term of my office."

That was but a month. I was only a locum tenens during leave. Only a month, and the poor old beggar had waited fourteen years to praise God on the little drum! The pathos and bathos of it hit me hard; but a stare of infinite surprise had replaced the circumambient smile. The fakeer himself seemed flabbergasted. I think he felt lost without his petition, for I saw him fumbling in his pocket as the janissaries hustled him out of court, as janissaries love to do, east or west.

That night, as I was wondering if I had smoked enough and yawned enough to make sleep possible in a hundred degrees of heat, and a hundred million mosquitoes, I was suddenly reminded of the proverb "Charity begins at home." It had, with a vengeance. I had thought my sarishtidar's language a trifle too picturesque; now I recognised its supreme accuracy. The fakeer was "a damnably noiseful man." It is useless trying to add one iota to this description, especially to those unacquainted with the torture of an Indian drum. By dawn I was in the saddle, glad to escape from my own house and the ceaseless "Rumpa-tum-tum," which was driving me crazy.

When I returned, the old man was awaiting me in the verandah, his face full of a great content; and the desire to murder him, which rose up in me with the thought of the twenty-nine nights yet to come, faded before it. Perfect happiness is not the lot of many, but apparently it was his. He salaamed down to the ground. "Huzoor," he said, "the great joy in me created a disturbance last night. It will not occur again. The Protector of the Poor shall sleep in peace, even though his slave praises God for him all night long. The Almighty does not require a loud drum."

I said I was glad to hear it, and my self-complacency grew until I laid my head on the pillow somewhat earlier than usual. Then I became aware of a faint throbbing in the air, like that which follows a deep organ note--a throbbing which found its way into the drum of my ear and remained there--so faint that it kept me on the rack to know if it had stopped or was still going on. "Rumpa-tum-tum-tum, rumpa-tum-tum-tum, rumpa----" Even now the impulse to make the hateful rhythm interminable seizes on me. I have to lay aside my pen and take a new one before going on.

I draw a veil over the mental struggle which followed. It would have been quite easy to rescind my permission, but the thought of one month versus fourteen years roused my pride. As representative of the "almighty wictoria, reg. britannicorum," etc., I had admitted this man to the privileges of praising God on the little drum, and there was an end of it. But the effort left my nerves shattered with the strain put on them. It was the middle of the hot weather--that awful fortnight before the rains break--I was young--absolutely alone. Every morning as I rode, a perfect wreck, past the fakeer's hovel by the gate, he used to ask me if I had slept well, and I lied to him. What was the use of suffering if no one was the happier for it?

At last, one evening--it was the twenty-first, I remember, for I ticked them off on a calendar like any schoolboy--I sat out among the oleanders, knowing that sleep was mine. The rains had broken, a cool wind stirred the dripping trees, the fever of unrest was over. Clouds of winged white ants besieged the lamp: what wonder, when the rafters of the old bungalow were riddled almost beyond the limits of safety by their galleries? But what did I care? I was going to sleep. And so I did, like a child, until close on the dawn. And then--by heavens, it was too bad! In the verandah surely, not faint, but loudly imperative: "RUMPA-TUM-TUM-TUM!"

I was out of bed in an instant full of fury. The fiend incarnate must be walking round the house. I was after him in the moonlight. Not a sign; the white oleanders were shining in the dark foliage; a firefly or two--nothing more.

"Rumpa-tum-tum-tum!" Fainter this time round the corner.

Not there!

"Rumpa-tum-tum-tum!" A mere whisper now, but loud enough to be traced. So on the track, I was round the house to the verandah whence I had started.

No sign--no sound!

Gracious! what was that? A crash, a thud, a roar and rattle of earth! The house! the roof!

When by the growing light of dawn we inspected the damage, we found the biggest rafter of all lying right across the pillow where my head had been two minutes before. The first sunbeams were on the still sparkling trees when, full of curiosity, I strolled over to the fakeer's hut. It also was a heap of ruins, and when we dug the old man out from among the ant-riddled rafters the doctor said he had been dead for many hours.

This story may seem strange to some; others will agree with my sarishtidar, who, after spending the morning over a Johnson's dictionary and a revenue report, informed me that "such catastrophes are but too common in this unhappy land after heavy rain following on long-continued drought."