Arrived at our own sleeper, he would undo the
bedding-bundles and make the beds and put everything to rights and
shipshape in two minutes; then put his head out at, a window and have a
restful good time abusing his gang of coolies and disputing their bill
until we arrived and made him pay them and stop his noise.
Speaking of noise, he certainly was the noisest little devil in India
--and that is saying much, very much, indeed. I loved him for his noise,
but the family detested him for it. They could not abide it; they could
not get reconciled to it. It humiliated them. As a rule, when we got
within six hundred yards of one of those big railway stations, a mighty
racket of screaming and shrieking and shouting and storming would break
upon us, and I would be happy to myself, and the family would say, with
shame:
"There--that's Satan. Why do you keep him?"
And, sure enough, there in the whirling midst of fifteen hundred
wondering people we would find that little scrap of a creature
gesticulating like a spider with the colic, his black eyes snapping, his
fez-tassel dancing, his jaws pouring out floods of billingsgate upon his
gang of beseeching and astonished coolies.
Pages:
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153