When those old Tirthankers stir abroad they have no dealings with folk in this city that any man knows of." "Are you sure they are Tirthankers ?" asked King.
"I am sure of nothing, _sahib_.

For aught I know they are _devils_!" King gave him a small sum of money, and we walked away toward the burning ghat, where there was nothing but a mean smell and a few old men with rakes gathering up ashes.

But outside the ghat, where a golden mohur tree cast a wide shadow across the road there was a large crowd sitting and standing in rings around an absolutely naked, ash-smeared religious fanatic.
The fanatic appeared to have the crowd bewildered, for he cursed and blessed on no comprehensible schedule, and gave extraordinary answers to the simplest questions, not acknowledging a question at all unless it suited him.
King and I had not been there a minute before some one asked him about the Princess Yasmini.
"Aha! Who stares at the fire burns his eyes! A burned eye is of less use than a raw one!" Some laughed, but not many.

Most of them seemed to think there was deep wisdom in his answer to be dug for meditatively, as no doubt there was.
Then a man on the edge of the crowd a long way off from me, who wore the air of a humorist, asked him about me.
"Does the shadow of this foreigner offend your honor's holiness ?" None glanced in my direction; that might have given the game away.

It is considered an exquisite joke to discuss a white man to his face without his knowing it.