“I hae ma doots.”
“What’s that last sentence, please? Will you teach me some new words and so improve my English?”
Fielding doubted whether “everything ranged coldly on shelves” could be improved. He was often struck with the liveliness with which the younger generation handled a foreign tongue. They altered the idiom, but they could say whatever they wanted to say quickly; there were none of the babuisms ascribed to them up at the club. But then the club moved slowly; it still declared that few Mohammedans and no Hindus would eat at an Englishman’s table, and that all Indian ladies were in impenetrable purdah. Individually it knew better; as a club it declined to change.
“Let me put in your stud. I see . . . the shirt back’s hole is rather small and to rip it wider a pity.”
“Why in hell does one wear collars at all?” grumbled Fielding as he bent his neck.
“We wear them to pass the Police.”
“What’s that?”
“If I’m biking in English dress—starch collar, hat with ditch—they take no notice. When I wear a fez, they cry, ‘Your lamp’s out!’ Lord Curzon did not consider this when he urged natives of India to retain their picturesque costumes.—Hooray! Stud’s gone in.—Sometimes I shut my eyes and dream I have splendid clothes again and am riding into battle behind Alamgir. Mr. Fielding, must not India have been beautiful then, with the Mogul Empire at its height and Alamgir reigning at Delhi upon the Peacock Throne?”
“Two ladies are coming to tea to meet you—I think you know them.”
“Meet me? I know no ladies.”