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They do say the ghost of Chinna Tumbe walks, that always at midnight, when the Indian nightingale fills the Baboo's banian topes with her lugubrious song, and the weird ulus hoot from the peepul tops, a child, girt with silver bells, and followed by a Persian kitten and a mungooz, shakes the Baboo's gate, blows upon a silver whistle, and cries, so piteously, "Ayah! Ayah!"
Then the peddler speaks to the cunning mungooz, which immediately leaps to the ground, and sitting quite erect, with its broad tail curled over its back, like a marabout feather, holds its paws together in the quaint manner of a squirrel, and looks attentive.
Then they performed arati about the child's head, to avert the Evil Eye, describing mystic circles with lamps of rice-paste set on copper salvers, with many pious incantations. But, spite of all, the Evil Eye overtook Chinna Tumbe, when the pleasant peddler came all the way from Cabool, with his bushy-tailed kitten, and his mungooz cracking nuts.
Away fly kitten and mungooz, away from the gate, away from the Baboo's walks, bright with ixoras and creeping nagatallis, away from the Baboo's park, shady with banians, and fragrant with sandal-trees, and imposing with tall peepuls, and cool with sparkling fountains, away from the Baboo's home, away from the Baboo's heart, bereft thenceforth forever!
More of the peddler's funny conjuration, and up springs the mungooz into the air, like a Birman's wicker football, and, alighting on the kitten's back, clings close and fast.
So the pleasant peddler all the way from Cabool greets Chinna Tumbe merrily, saying, "See my pretty kitten, that knows a hundred tricks! and see my brave mungooz, that can kill cobras in fair fight! My Persian kitten for your silver bells, Chinna Tumbe, and my cunning mungooz for your golden chain!"
Presently comes along a pleasant peddler, all the way from Cabool, with a pretty bushy-tailed kitten of Persia in the hollow of his arm, and a cunning little mungooz cracking nuts on his shoulder. A score of tiny silver bells tinkle from a silken cord around Chinna Tumbe's loins, and the silver whistle with which he calls his cockatoos is suspended from his neck by a chain of gold.
And the pleasant peddler all the way from Cabool says, "Step without the gate, Little Brother, if you would see my pretty kitten play tricks; if you would stroke my cunning mungooz, step without the gate; for I dare not pass within, lest my lord, the Baboo of many lacs, should be angry."
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