Then he brought out a package of _birris_, those little cigarettes rolled in leaves that they smoke in Bombay, and I told him what had happened to me.

I implored him to put me in the way of obtaining some work by which I could at least support life, and he promised to do so, begging me to stay with him until I should be independent.

The day following I was engaged to pull a punkah in the house of an English lawyer connected with an immense lawsuit involving one of the Mohammedan principalities.

For this irksome work I was to receive six rupees--twelve shillings--monthly, but before the month was up I was transferred, by the kindness of the English lawyer and the good offices of my co-religionist the _moolah_, to the retinue of the Nizam of Haiderabad, then in Bombay.

Since that time I have never known want.
"I soon mastered enough of the dialects to suit my needs, and applied myself to the study of English, for which opportunities were not lacking.