I smashed his nose for him, but as it was a decided pug before the row began, that hardly squared the matter.' 'Did you ever hear the exact story ?' 'I have heard a dozen stories; and if only a quarter of them are true my grandfather was a scoundrel.

It seems that he was immensely popular for the first year or so of his government, gave more splendid entertainments than had been given at Madras for half a century before his time, lavished his wealth upon his favourites.

Then arose a rumour that the governor was insolvent and harassed by his creditors, and then a new source of wealth seemed to be at his command; he was more reckless, more princely than ever; and then, little by little, there arose the suspicion that he was trafficking in English interests, selling his influence to petty princes, winking at those mysterious crimes by which rightful heirs are pushed aside to make room for usurpers.

Lastly it became notorious that he was the slave of a wicked woman, false wife, suspected murderess, whose husband, a native prince, disappeared from the scene just when his existence became perilous to the governor's reputation.

According to one version of the story, the scandal of this Rajah's mysterious disappearance, followed not long after by the Ranee's equally mysterious death, was the immediate cause of my grandfather's recall.