In about three weeks Roscoe’s prediction was verified. Returning home late one evening Shafto was struck by the unusually impressive appearance and gestures of the fat Madrassi butler who, beckoning him aside with an air of alarming mystery, informed him that “someone was in his room waiting to see his honour.”
“In my room,” he repeated indignantly. “Why the mischief did you put him in there? Couldn’t he sit in the veranda, like other people?”
“No, saar, he refused; he would not.”
Shafto flung open the door of his apartment with a gesture of annoyance and, to his profound amazement, discovered the pongye seated in easy comfort upon his bed. He was surrounded by an odd medicinal aromatic atmosphere, his sandals, begging-bowl and umbrella were carefully disposed beside him and he appeared to be thoroughly at home.
“I thought I’d give ye a call, sorr, before I went up country. I’m off to Mandalay to-morrow on a pilgrimage.”
“Oh, are you?” said Shafto, taking a seat and feeling at a complete loss what he was to say and how he was to handle this novel situation.
“I thought,” resumed the pongye, “that I’d like to offer ye an explanation of the way I happened to be in that ’ere accident.”
“Yes,” assented his host; “I suppose this,” pointing to his yellow gown with his stick, “is a fancy dress, for, of course, you are not a real pongye?”
“Troth, I am so,” he rejoined with indignant emphasis; “I’ve been properly initiated—I know Burmese and the Pali language, and can intone a chant with anyone.”
“All the same, you’re an Irishman and your speech bewrayeth you. I wonder you are not kicked out.”