"Hush!" said one of the two small boys again; "dâdâ is going to talk--he may know----"
So once more the old voice rose in unconscious apology for the difficulty of condensing what etomologists call his life history into a census paper.
"Yea, it was good, and hard--yet not so hard as the first. That never left me, despite the long years."
It seemed, indeed, as if it had not, for something of childlike complaint came into the old voice. "It was my first day at court. Mother had cut my father's khim-khab robe--crimson with gold flowering--to fit me, despite her tears. Her eyes were heavy with them when she kissed me; but I had no fear for all I was so young. I knew the women's bread depended on my tongue--though it was my heritage also to be Chaplaoo.
"And the King was pleased. Mother had tied my turban so tall and he laughed at that. It was out in the garden, he under the gilt canopy, the nobles round and beyond the flowers, and birds fluttering among the roses.
"And I was standing beside the king, and he was laughing--for I knew my part.
"Then the fluttering came closer, closer, and lo! a bird settled on my wrist. It was Gul-afrog--I had left it with my sister, but it had followed me--for we loved each other. So, on my wrist it sate joyful, and salaamed, as I had taught it, drooping its pretty wings.
"Then the King cried, 'How, now, whose pretty bird is this?' and someone laid a warning hand upon my shoulder. But I knew before what I must say if I was to stand in father's place. I knew! I knew!
"'It is yours, my king.'
"So I said, kneeling at his feet! 'It is yours, it is yours,' and Gul-afrog had been with me since it fell out of the bulbul nest in the rose tree. Then they brought a golden cage ..." The old man sate staring out into the sunshine in silence, and only the littlest of the two boys wept softly.