"'As for being generous, I am not really so as everything I give away I believe belongs to God, even as I told you my life is His. Once when my brothers and I were rich two poor men came to our camp and asked for food. We refused, and drove them forth into the bush. Near us lived a poor man and his wife, and to this couple the poor men went for shelter and a bite of food. They had but a few goats, of which they killed one, and gave the strangers to eat and made them welcome. We laughed and said it was meet the poor should help the poor. Soon after that the cattle plague came and swept off all our stock; we were left beggars, without a bite to eat. The stock of the poor man who had killed his goat for the poor men, sent to his gate by God, escaped the plague and multiplied so that he became rich. Thus I learned that we but hold the world's riches on trust, and God to Whom they belong can take them away from us in a single night. The good things that come my way I share with my less fortunate brethren whilst I have the opportunity, lest it should pass from my hands for ever.'
"And that is the end of the story," said Buralli.
"But you said it was a naughty story, Buralli, and you have not explained why the young man was shameless."
Buralli's eye twinkled.
"That is the naughty part, Sahib."
Like Mark Twain's "indelicate story," but for a different reason, as Buralli did tell me why the young man was shameless, this story must remain incomplete.