influential ladies of the palace, and all sought with avidity the
opportunity to effect their object. Ghalib Jung was the person, or
one of the persons, through whom the King invited females, noted for
either their beauty or their accomplishments, and he was told to
bring a celebrated dancing-girl, named Mogaree. She did not appear,
and the King became impatient, and at last asked Dhuneea Mehree the
reason. She had often been employed in a similar office, and was
jealous of Ghalib Jung's rivalry. She told his Majesty, that he had
obstructed his pleasures on this as on many other occasions, and
taken the lady into his own keeping. All the other favourites told
him the same thing, and it is generally believed that the charge was
true; indeed the girl herself afterwards confessed it. The King,
however, "bided his time," in the hope of finding some other ground
of revenging himself upon the favourite, without the necessity of
making him appear in public as his rival.

On the 7th of October, 1835, the King was conversing with Ghalib
Jung, in one of his private apartments, on affairs of state. Several
crowns stood on the table for the King's inspection. They had been
prepared under Mucka, the tailor's, inspection, from materials
purchased by him. He always charged the King ten times the price of
the articles which he was ordered to provide, and Ghalib Jung thought
the occasion favourable to expose his misconduct to his master. He
took up one of the crowns, put his left hand into it, and, turning it
round on his finger, pointed out the flimsy nature of the materials
with which it had been made. His left finger slipped through the silk
on the crown, whether accidentally, or designedly, to prove the
flimsy nature of the silk and exasperate the King, is not known; but
on seeing the finger pass through the crown, his Majesty left the
room without saying a word. Soon after several attendants came in,