The Rajah ordered in his Durbar or council, who were smoking their pipes, sitting on the door-mats in the lobby, and then before them repeated his question; to which the jeweller, with one eye on the bowstring, returned his second answer.
"You see," said the Rajah, "Tiffin Gong is an excellent judge of jewels. He declares this wonderful gem worth twenty million of lacs; he shall have it for nineteen and a half, which is just as though I had given him a half lac as a present."
Of course the Durbar were in raptures at this liberality, and sung the national anthem, "Bramah save the Rajah!" with the greatest enthusiasm. As for Poor Tiffin Gong, he saw that he was but a departed coon, and turned very nearly white with rage and terror. He had not got exactly nineteen millions and a half of lacs, but he handed over nineteen and a quarter. Upon which the Rajah, holding this to be a breach of engagement, retained the Koh-i-Noor and the rupees too; and when Tiffin Gong complained of being kept hanging about the court trying to get his own, the Rajah said he might try another sort of dangling, and so hanged him literally, and in thorough good earnest.
Being thus undoubted possessor of the jewel, the Rajah ordered the Chroniclers and Keepers of the Records to invent all sorts of stories about the Koh-i-Noor, and to stick them as notes into the next edition of the History of Jiggerydam, his kingdom, all of which was done to admiration, and everybody who did not believe the notes, was beheaded, except a few, who were hanged. The after story of this wonderful jewel may be soon told. The Rajah wore it in his nose, but was speedily made war upon by another Rajah, who was determined to have a grab at the priceless stone. The Rajahs met in single combat, and were found after the battle with only a hand of each remaining, a whisker which could not be identified, and the Koh-i-Noor between them. It then fell into the possession of the Emperor Mahommed Bung, from whom it was taken after fifteen years' war by the celebrated Mahratta chief, Tater Khan. Bung, in fact, had, as a last resource, swallowed the stone, which choked him; but Tater Khan had it out in no time, as he said himself, "by the help of Allah and an oyster knife." The Khan's descendants, who were continually conspiring against each other, and putting arsenic in each other's curry with intent to get possession of the bone, or rather stone, of contention, at length fell into arrears of tribute to their proud landlords, the H.E.I.C., who at last, backed by the Government, put in a distress, seized the Koh-i-Noor, and sent it home; when Mr. Bramah, who is no relation to the idol of that name, made a cage for it, and all the world had lately an opportunity of seeing it. We regret that all the rubs which the Koh-i-Noor has received have failed to heighten its brilliancy, and it is the opinion of those best acquainted with the facts, that the gem is not brighter now than when Mr. Fogrum hung up his chandelier in his dancing-school at Ponder's End.
THE KOH-I-NOOR AS IT APPEARED IN THE CRYSTAL PALACE.
Advice "To those about to marry"——buy—cheap Furniture—
MRS. BEAKEY'S TABLE (AND CHAIR) TALK.
Well, my love, Charles thought that as I had vowed I would never marry into furnished lodgings, we had better wait until he had saved money enough to furnish a house comfortably. I was sillier then than I am now, and I thought his wanting to postpone our marriage didn't look much like love, so I sulked. He was sillier then than he is now, and minded a woman's sulks. He furnished a house completely from top to bottom, from an advertising warehouse, and the whole bill came to 29l. 11s. 3½d. We married and took possession. Here is my diary of the week, love; I preserve it for any of my young friends who are in a hurry to marry.