The Impersonality of Daniel Thorpe

In Punjab, said the Major, a fellow once pointed out a beggar to me. Islamic legend apparently has it that King Solomon owned a ring that allowed him to understand the language of the birds. The value of the ring was so beyond all reckoning that the poor bugger could never sell it and he died in one of the courtyards of the mosque of Wazir Khan in Lahore. And what became of the ring, I asked? Lost now, as that sort of magical, thingy-majig always is,. probably in some secret hiding place in the mosque or on the finger of some chap who's off living somewhere where there are no birds. Or where there