That afternoon, the Major had all his kit and personal property paraded in his sitting-room, in order that the packing of his belongings (he was a very tidy man) should take place under his own eyes. The bearer was in attendance, and with him his slave and scapegoat—the chokra.
The bearer was a stolid, impassive-looking Mahomedan, with a square black beard, and a somewhat sullen eye.
“Abdul,” said his master, as his gaze travelled languidly from one neatly folded pile of clothes to another—from guns in cases to guns not in cases, to clocks, revolvers, watches, candlesticks—the collection of ten years, parting gifts, bargains, and legacies—“you have been my servant for six years, and have served me well. I have twice raised your wages, and you have made a very good thing out of me, I believe, and can, no doubt, retire and set up a ticca gharry, or a shop. I am going away, and never coming back, and I want to give you something of mine as a remembrance—something to remember me by, you understand?”
The bearer deliberately unfolded his arms, and salaamed in silence.
“You may choose anything you like out of this room,” continued the Major, with unexampled recklessness.
Abdul’s eyes glittered curiously—it was as if a torch had suddenly illumined two inky-black pools.
“Sahib never making joke—sahib making really earnest?”—casting on him a glance of almost desperate eagerness. The glance was lost on his master, whose attention was fixed on a discarded gold-laced tunic and mess-jacket.
“Of course,” he said to himself, “Abdul will choose them,” for gold lace is ever dear to a native heart, it sells so well in the bazaar, and melts down to such advantage.
“Making earnest!” repeated the invalid, irritably. “Do I ever do otherwise? Look sharp, and take your choice.”
“Salaam, sahib,” he answered, and turned quickly to where the Missus was coiled up in a chair. “I take my choice of anything in this room. Then I take—the—dog.”