“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said with a foreign accent, “a very good boy, but he steals like a crow, and must have the whip occasionally. I am sure that he has concealed somewhere about him the five rupees which have been stolen from me again to-day.” On saying this, as if he considered this information quite sufficient explanation, he again caught hold of the black fellow, and with a single wrench tore the turban from his head. From the white, red-bordered cloth a few pieces of silver fell and rolled jingling over the tiles; and at the same time a larger object fell at Heideck’s feet. He picked it up and held in his hand a gold cigarette-case, the lid of which was engraved with a prince’s coronet. On handing it to the stranger, the latter bowed his thanks and made his apologies like a man of good breeding. The Indian the while took the opportunity, in a few monkey-like bounds, to make good his escape. The sight of the coat-of-arms on the cigarette-case aroused in Heideck the desire to make nearer acquaintance with his impetuous neighbour. As though he had quite forgotten the extraordinary manner of his entrance into the room, he asked, blandly, if he might invite his neighbour, whom accident had thus thrust upon him, to a cigar and a “nightcap.”
The other accepted the invitation with amiable alacrity. “You are also a commercial traveller, sir?” inquired Heideck; and on receiving an affirmative answer, continued, “we are then colleagues. Are you satisfied with your results here?”
“Oh, things might be better. There is too much competition.”
“Cotton?”
“No. Bronze goods and silk. Have brought some marvellous gold ornaments from Delhi.”
“Then probably your cigarette-case comes from Delhi also?” The oval eyes of the other shot over him in an inquiring glance.
“My cigarette-case? No—are you travelling perhaps in skins, colleague? Do you deal in Cashmir goats?”
“I have everything. My house trades in everything.”
“You do not come from Calcutta?”
“No! not from Calcutta.”