"'Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend,'" Tommy persisted with a twinkle in his eye.
"Thanks, I'm much obliged but it isn't necessary. Have a cigarette."
It was mentioned that the doctor dined at the Bara Koti that evening.
When the news of an extra mouth to feed was conveyed to the cook in the kitchen, Abdul surveyed three snipe among potato chips with a problem of multiplication vexing his soul.
"With the padre-sahib they are three, yet without warning they bring a fourth! Now what to do? ai khodar!—how to arrange?"
"Why disturb thyself, brother?" said the khansaman sympathetically as he put extra plates on the rack of the hot-case in which an open fire in a cast-iron cooker burned fiercely. "Cut each bird in two and make toast for each portion, in this way there will be some left for thee and me. If the master say aught, ask if it is his almighty will that the shikari be sent out at a moment's notice in the moonlight to shoot another bird."
The fine sarcasm of his advice created a general laugh of good-humour among the servants assembled to serve the dinner. "In my last place," continued the Mohammedan butler, "my Sahib who had no wife would, out of sheer provocation, bring six or eight sahibs home to eat with him, and could we protest? Yah, khodar! that instant with two kicks would we have been dismissed, and he so ready with his boot! No! Quickly we put water in the soup; with much energy we opened a tin of salmon, cut up onions, fetched a cucumber from the vegetable garden for salad. Then in the fowl-house, what a cackling and screeching as the masalchi chased fowls and cut their throats! Jhut! they were cleaned and how long does it take to grill meat? In fifteen minutes from the order, the dinner was ready, pudding and all. When a store-room is well-stocked, it is like jadu[14] to make a dinner for one capable of feeding six and even eight!"
All great talkers are unconscious egotists, as the Merediths found the Reverend John Pugh who enjoyed the sound of his own voice even when he was not in the pulpit, and retailed stock jokes and anecdotes to the company in general, forgetful of the fact that the same jokes and anecdotes had been recounted by him at every house on his visiting list. At dessert Joyce was glad to slip away to the drawing-room taking with her the doctor, who was permitted to smoke while he played to her on the piano.
Joyce noticed that he was disinclined for conversation and was out of sorts and dull, as though inwardly disturbed and uninterested even at his music. He took an early opportunity to leave and was accompanied to the doorstep by Joyce, her husband being still pinned to the dining-room by the parson whose anecdotes were inexhaustible.
"When next you see your friend, Miss Bright," said he, apropos of nothing, as he shook hands again, "tell her, will you?—that I know how to take a snub."