“We will have a grand wedding, O Margam,” said Hassan to his wife; “a great tamasha,[18] and plenty of feasting!”
“And my daughter shall have goodly garments, meet for the bride of Yuhanna,”[19] said the smiling Margam. “She shall have a shawl woven at Amritsar, and embroidery from Delhi, and slippers worked in blue and silver, such as are worn by the begum.”[20]
“And what shall I have, O father?” cried little Yusuf, the youngest child of the moonshee, and dear to his heart as the light of his eyes.
“Thou at the wedding of thy sister shalt have a new pugree with a border of gold,” said Hassan, bending down to kiss fondly the brow of his child.
“For the wedding festivities and the goodly garments money must be borrowed,” observed Margam, who knew that the expenses to be incurred would amount to a sum much greater than her husband could earn in a year by teaching.
“Yes, I must borrow,” said Hassan calmly, but with a look of thought. “To whom shall I go for the money?”
“To Nabi Bakhsh,” suggested Margam.
“Not to Nabi Bakhsh, of all men!” exclaimed the moonshee; “he is an usurer who would squeeze juice out of a date-stone! Not to Sadik, for I owe him five rupees already.”
“There is the English Sahib; he is a great friend of my lord,” observed Margam; “surely when he hears that the money is required for a wedding-feast he will be ready to lend.”
“And Alton Sahib is able to do so,” cried Hassan; “his salary is five hundred rupees a month, and I doubt that he spends more than three. He has the smallest and worst bungalow in the station, and keeps fewer servants than a clerk on the railway would do. The Sahib must be laying up money; and he is so much my friend that I am sure that he would help me in this my need. To-day is a holiday in the school where I teach; my time is therefore my own, and I will go at once to the Sahib.”