The shopkeeper waited till
four o'clock in the afternoon of the next day without looking into
the purse.
Hearing then that I had left Datiya, and seeing no signs of the
sipahi, he opened the purse, and found that the rupees were all
copper, with a thin coating of silver. The man had changed them while
he went into the shop for a turban, and substituted a purse exactly
the same in appearance. After ascertaining that the story was true,
and that the ingenious thief was not one of my followers, I insisted
upon the man's taking the money from me, in spite of a great deal of
remonstrance on the part of the Raja's agent, who had come on with
us.
Notes:
1. The editor has failed to trace this quotation, which may possibly
be from the _Mishkat-ul-Masabih_ (_ante_, Chapter 5, note 10).
Compare '"There is nothing more horrible than the rebellion of a
sheep", said de Marsay' (Balzac, _Lost by a Laugh_).
2. The English doggerel expresses the opposite sentiment,
'My son's my son till he gets him a wife;
My daughter's my daughter all her life.'
3. _Ante_, chap. 29, text at [4], and before [7].
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