And as each prince filed past Utirupa in proper order of precedence, to make a polite set speech, and bow, and be bowed to in return, he had to pass Yasmini first, and bow to her first, although he made his speech to Utirupa, who acknowledged it.  So, when Samson’s turn came, he, too, had to bow first to Yasmini, because as a gentleman he could hardly do less; and her wonderful eyes laughed into his angry ones as she bowed to him in return, with such good humor and elation that he could not help but smile back; he could forgive a lovely woman almost anything, could Samson.  He could almost forgive her that no less than nineteen British officers of various ranks, as well as one-hundred-and-three-and-twenty native noblemen had seen him with their own eyes to make an official bow to the consort of a reigning maharajah.  He had recognized her officially!  Well; he supposed he could eat his aftermath as well as any man; and he drove home with a smile and a high chin, to unbosom himself to Colonel Willoughby de Wing over a whisky and soda at the club, as Ferdinand de Sousa Braganza reported in some detail at the Goanese Club afterward.

Late that night, when the fireworks were all over and the lights were beginning to be extinguished on the roofs and windows, it was a question which was most drunk—­Akbar, the three beggars, or Tom Tripe.  Akbar’s outrageous trumpeting could be heard all over the city, as he raced around his dark compound after shadows, and rats, and mice and anything else that he imagined or could see.  What Tom Tripe saw kept him to his quarters, where Trotters watched him in dire misery.  The three beggars, Bimbu, Pinga and Umra, saw three amber moons in a purple sky, for they said so.  They also said that all the world was lovely, and Yasmini was a queen of queens, out of whose jeweled hand the very gods ate.  And when people scolded them for blasphemy, they made such outrageously funny and improper jokes that everybody laughed again.

Drunk or sober (and more than ninety-nine per cent. of Sialpore was absolutely sober then as always) every one had something to amuse and entertain, except Samson, whose mental vision was of a great empty hole in the ground in which he might just as well bury all his hopes of ever being high commissioner; and poor Tom Tripe, who had worked harder than anybody, and was now enjoying the aftermath perhaps least.

Sialpore put itself to bed in great good temper, sure that princes and elephants and ceremony were the cream of life, and that whoever did not think so did not deserve to have any pageantry and pomp, and that was all about it.

Next morning early, Dick Blaine drove down to look for Tom Tripe, found him—­bound him in a blanket—­shoved him, feet first, on to the floor of the dog-cart, and drove him, followed by Trotters in doubt whether to show approval or fight, to his own house on the hill, where Tess and he nursed the old soldier back to soberness and old remorse.