EXPERIENCES OF MR. STALE, 
feeing awoke during a night of rain with something 
eold dropping on the face, the hands would be spread 
out, and surely you would very feelingly feel that 
the sheets and blankets were soaked with water ; the 
leak in the roof had dropped down on the bed top, 
which in its turn then dropped it down on you : 
then, you were luck^^ if you had any talipot leaves 
in the house, but as this was rarely the case you 
must provide a substitute j and this was what had 
possibly been laid aside, in ev^enljof this very pro- 
bable contingency : some old battered and tattered 
tops of paper umbrellas. You vrould get up, strike 
a light, and lay these over the top of the bed, so 
as effectually to stop the leakage and then go com- 
fortably to sleep. Having slept badly during the first 
hours of the night, you would awake rather late, 
and jumping out in a great hurry the bare feet would 
splash into a pool of water on the mud floor, giving 
one a very practical proof of the ducking from which 
you had escaped owdng to the timely use of these 
old umbrella tops ; and the old proverb passes through 
the mind, “Keep a thing seven years and you will 
find a use for it,” The ultimate and final results 
of all Mr, Stale’s cogitations, both in and out of 
bed, were, that he could put up a chimney so very 
easily and cheap, that it was of no manner of use 
whatever to make any official request or representa- 
tion on the subject to his superiors in office, and so, 
in the course of a day or tw^o, large heaps of stones 
and dabs of wet mud were collected at the gable 
end of the house. There were no masons to be got 
anywhere, so Mr, Stale commenced with a necessary 
force of coolies to build the fire-place and chimney 
himself 1 He ordered up to the house a dozen of 
coolies who commenced to make a large hole with 
their mamoties directly in front of the house door 
into this hole they led and turned in from the spout 
behind the kitchen a stream of water; then four 
coolies with bare legs jumped into this hole, and 
jumped about in it ; they caught hold of each others’ 
hands, and round and round the hole they danced, 
singing all the time, “Nan, nan, nan, nai — nan nai,” 
while another cooly kept shovelling into the hole 
quantities of loose earth, which in due time w^as 
converted into a sticky mud of the consistency of 
slackened lime. Then the mud in the hole became so 
sticky, that it was with difficulty they could draw 
their feet out of it, and the whole of their legs ap- , 
peared as if plastered with red mud. 
This was a sure sign that the proper working up 
of the mud was compl» ted. Then the order was given 
for the men to come out of that hole ; but when 
