The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney (Unabridged)

First published in Macmillan's Magazine for December 1889 , as «Great Krishna Mulvaney», in Harper's Short Stories in September 1890, and collected in The Courting of Dinah Shadd and other stories in 1890 (USA) , Mine Own People in 1891 (USA), and Life's Handicap in 1891. The 'Soldiers Three' are badly short of beer money, and Mulvaney is charged with going out and finding funds. On a railway construction site he finds Dearsley, a foreman who has been defrauding his native workmen on a grand scale. Each month they have to buy raffle tickets, for which the prize is a magnificent queen's palanquin (sedan chair), enamelled, brocaded, and lined with silk. Each month, on pain of dismissal, the winner gives the palanquin back to Dearsley.