“What will you take for her?”
“I never selling master’s present,” rejoined the bearer, with superb dignity.
“What does a nigger want with a dog?” demanded the officer, scornfully. “Well, then, swop her—that won’t hurt your delicate sense of honour. I’ll get you an old pariah out of the bazaar, and give you fifty rupees to buy him a collar!”
“I have refused to-day one thousand rupees for the Missy,” said Abdul, with increased hauteur.
“You lie, Abdul,” said the officer, sternly; “or else you have been dealing with a stark, staring madman.”
“I telling true, Captain Sahib. I swear by the beard of the Prophet.”
“Who made the offer?”
“Major Bone”—the natives always called him “Major Bone.”
“Great Scott! Poor dear old chap” (to himself): “I had no idea he was so badly touched. It is well he is going home, or it would be a case of four orderlies and a padded room. So much for this beastly country!” Then to Abdul, “Look here; don’t say a word about that offer, and come over to my quarters, and I’ll give you some dibs—the sun has been too much for your sahib—and mind you be kind to the Missus; if not, I’ll come and shoot her, and thrash you within an inch of your life.”
“Gentlemen Sahib never beating servants. Sahib touch me, I summon in police-court, and I bring report to regimental commanding officer. Also, I going my own country, Bareilly, and I never, never selling kind master’s present.”