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To which the man replied, "What is raining?": which question was the beginning of a violent quarrel and a lasting friendship. I will not touch upon any heads of the dispute, which doubtless included Jupiter Pluvius, the Neuter Gender, Pantheism, Noah's Ark, Mackintoshes, and the Passive Mood; but I will record the one point upon which the two persons emerged in some agreement.

It is a peculiarity of most tropical climates, that Jupiter Pluvius does most of his work between the hours of sunset and sunrise. The natives met with as a rule were disposed to be friendly. Those with whom the men talked would not quite credit the statement that the Khalifa had been defeated, his army destroyed, and that he had run away.

Put your blankets over your heads, woman-fashion, and travel like a blue streak; and Jupiter Pluvius! how cold this rain is!" His words ended in an involuntary chatter.

The canvas was at once removed out of sight. At the sale of his works, on the death of the painter, his son changed the name of the picture to 'Jupiter Pluvius, under which more marketable guise it soon found a purchaser. On the 7th of June 1775, Romney arrived again in England: his return being celebrated by glowing strains from Cumberland's ready muse.

As the hurler of thunderbolts he was called "the Thunderer," and as the opener of the windows of heaven, when it rained, he was designated "Jupiter Pluvius."

But the republic, although deserted by her former friends, and looked upon askance by the monarch of Britain, and by the most Christian king, had this year a most efficient ally in the weather. Jupiter Pluvius had descended from on high to the rescue of the struggling commonwealth, and his decrees were omnipotent as to the course of the campaign. The seasons that year seemed all fused into one.

Under the ancient divisions of horse and foot the world and its impedimenta moved upon Hyde Park, the Champ de Mars and the Prater, the umbrella and the oil-cloth tilt their only shield against Jupiter Pluvius, who seemed to take especial pleasure in demonstrating their failure, nineteen centuries after the contemptuous erasure of him from the calendar, to escape his power.

Then the rain came down, and no believer in Jupiter Pluvius as a German god could maintain that that river had been turned into a roaring torrent in the interests of the German pursuit. The Tagliamento could, however, be easily turned from the north, and the Italian retreat continued across the Livenza and the Piave where Cadorna stood on 10 November.

Not without a severe struggle did Jupiter Pluvius consent to turn off the tap, but at length the sun broke through the hanging clouds and sent their sodden grey fragments swirling up the Ferozepore Nullah to break in foamy wreaths round the ragged cliffs of Kulan.

As I came out into the passage leading to the zenana I found my sister-in-law, standing near a window overlooking the reception rooms, peeping through the venetian shutter. "You here?" I asked in surprise. "Eavesdropping!" she replied. The Jupiter Pluvius of Hindu mythology. When I returned, Sandip Babu was tenderly apologetic. "I am afraid we have spoilt your appetite," he said.