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“And thou hast pig's ears,” came the civil rejoinder, while Koom Khan, to keep the assembly from degenerating into an unseemly brawl and perhaps the swishing of swords, rose, gathered eyes like a hostess, and walked straight up to the peacock throne.

“Aziza Nurmahal,” he said, with drawling, slow arrogance, “statecraft waits on facts, a mere hand-maiden, and does not invent them; and the fact is that we, the princes and nobles and soldiers of Tamerlanistan, have decided in full durbar that our land needs the money and wisdom and energy of the sahebs. The Babu Bansi has made a fair offer …

“Indeed!” cried the Armenian to whom, that very morning, Bansi, who had returned from Teheran, had given a certified check on the Anglo-Persian Bank for a goodly number of rupees, signed “Preserved Higgins”; while Tagi Khan, the leader of the other faction, boomed out that the Babu Chandra's offer was every bit as fair.

Koom Khan shrugged his massive shoulders.

“It makes no difference to me,” he went on, “to which of the two Babus thou grantest the concession …”

“Right!” chimed in the nurse who, though opposed to the princess' steadfast refusal of opening the land to European exploitation, had nowise lost her dislike for the courtiers nor learned to bridle her tongue. “Right, by Allah! Either Babu will well grease thy thieving hand.”

“Peace, O noseless one!” from Koom Khan; then, to the princess: “It seems that thy path is clear. For we have decided.”