And in Agra, of
all places. So he had to go. When I told him, he said patiently, "Wair
good," and made his parting salute, and went out from us to return no
more forever. Dear me! I would rather have lost a hundred angels than
that one poor lovely devil. What style he used to put on, in a swell
hotel or in a private house--snow-white muslin from his chin to his bare
feet, a crimson sash embroidered with gold thread around his waist, and
on his head a great sea-green turban like to the turban of the Grand
Turk.
He was not a liar; but he will become one if he keeps on. He told me
once that he used to crack cocoanuts with his teeth when he was a boy;
and when I asked how he got them into his mouth, he said he was upward of
six feet high at that time, and had an unusual mouth. And when I
followed him up and asked him what had become of that other foot, he said
a house fell on him and he was never able to get his stature back again.
Swervings like these from the strict line of fact often beguile a
truthful man on and on until he eventually becomes a liar.
His successor was a Mohammedan, Sahadat Mohammed Khan; very dark, very
tall, very grave.
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