It was written on a scrap of foreign paper duly stamped as a petition, and it did not need the interpolation of imperial titles to prove that this was not by any means its first appearance in court. To be plain, it had an "ancient and a fishlike smell," suggestive of many years' acquaintance with dirty humanity. I looked at the man who had presented it--a very ordinary fakeer, standing with hands folded humbly--and was struck by the wistful expectancy in his face. It was at once hopeful yet hopeless. Turning to the court-reader for explanation, I found a decorous smile flowing round the circle of squatting clerks. It was evidently an old-established joke.
"He is damnably noiseful man, Sir," remarked my sarishtidar, cheerfully, "and his place of sitting close to Deputy-Commissioner's bungalow. Thus European officers object; so it is always na-munzoor" (refused).
The sound of the familiar formula drove the hope from the old man's face; his thin shoulders seemed to droop, but he said nothing.
"How long has this been going on?" I asked.
"Fourteen years, Sir. Always on transference of officers, and it is always na-munzoor." He dipped his pen in the ink, gave it the premonitory flick.
"Munzoor" (granted), said I, in a sudden decision. "Munzoor during the term of my office."
That was but a month. I was only a locum tenens during leave. Only a month, and the poor old beggar had waited fourteen years to praise God on the little drum! The pathos and bathos of it hit me hard; but a stare of infinite surprise had replaced the circumambient smile. The fakeer himself seemed flabbergasted. I think he felt lost without his petition, for I saw him fumbling in his pocket as the janissaries hustled him out of court, as janissaries love to do, east or west.
That night, as I was wondering if I had smoked enough and yawned enough to make sleep possible in a hundred degrees of heat, and a hundred million mosquitoes, I was suddenly reminded of the proverb "Charity begins at home." It had, with a vengeance. I had thought my sarishtidar's language a trifle too picturesque; now I recognised its supreme accuracy. The fakeer was "a damnably noiseful man." It is useless trying to add one iota to this description, especially to those unacquainted with the torture of an Indian drum. By dawn I was in the saddle, glad to escape from my own house and the ceaseless "Rumpa-tum-tum," which was driving me crazy.
When I returned, the old man was awaiting me in the verandah, his face full of a great content; and the desire to murder him, which rose up in me with the thought of the twenty-nine nights yet to come, faded before it. Perfect happiness is not the lot of many, but apparently it was his. He salaamed down to the ground. "Huzoor," he said, "the great joy in me created a disturbance last night. It will not occur again. The Protector of the Poor shall sleep in peace, even though his slave praises God for him all night long. The Almighty does not require a loud drum."
I said I was glad to hear it, and my self-complacency grew until I laid my head on the pillow somewhat earlier than usual. Then I became aware of a faint throbbing in the air, like that which follows a deep organ note--a throbbing which found its way into the drum of my ear and remained there--so faint that it kept me on the rack to know if it had stopped or was still going on. "Rumpa-tum-tum-tum, rumpa-tum-tum-tum, rumpa----" Even now the impulse to make the hateful rhythm interminable seizes on me. I have to lay aside my pen and take a new one before going on.