He was at once arrested, charged with theft and taken to the police station and locked up.

At about midday he was produced before the Magistrate.  When he appeared in court he was found wearing ten rings, one on each finger.  He was remanded and taken back to his cell in the jail.

The next morning when the door of his cell was opened it was found that one of the big almirahs in which some gold and silver articles were kept in Hamilton’s shop was standing in his cell.  Everybody gazed at it dumbfounded.  The almirah with its contents must have weighed 50 stones.  How it got into the cell was beyond comprehension.

All the big officers of Government came to see the fun and asked Hasan Khan how he had managed it.

“How did you manage to get the show-case in your drawing-room?” inquired Hasan Khan of each officer in reply to the question.

And everybody thought that the fellow was mad.  But as each officer reached home he found that one show-case (evidently from Hamilton’s shop) with all its contents was standing in his drawing room.

The next morning Hasan Khan gave out in clear terms that unless Messrs. Hamilton and Co. withdrew the charge against him at once they would find their safe in which were kept the extra valuable articles, at the bottom of the Bay of Bengal.

The Jewellers thought that prudence was the best part of valour and the case against Hasan Khan was withdrawn and he was acquitted of all charges and set at liberty.

Then arose the big question of compensating him for the incarceration he had suffered; and the ring with the single ruby which he had fancied so much and which had caused all this trouble was presented to him.

Of course, Messrs. Hamilton and Co. the Jewellers, had to spend a lot of money in carting back the show-cases that had so mysteriously walked away from their shop, but they were not sorry, because they could not have advertised their ware better, and everybody was anxious to possess something or other from among the contents of these peculiar show-cases.

It was in connection with this case that Hasan Khan became known to most of the European Government officials of Calcutta at that time.

THE BRIDAL PARTY.

In Benares, the sacred city of the Hindus, situated in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, there is a house which is famed pretty far and wide.  It is said that the house is haunted and that no human being can pass a night in that house.

* * * * *

Once there was a large Bridal party.

In India the custom is that the bridegroom goes to the house of the bride with great pomp and show with a number of friends and followers and the ceremony of “Kanya Dan” (giving away the girl) takes place at the bride’s house.

The number of the people who go with the bridegroom depends largely upon the means of the bride’s party, because the guests who come with the groom are to be fed and entertained in right regal style.  It is this feeding and entertaining the guests that makes a daughter’s marriage so costly in India, to a certain extent.