Perhaps the name, Job Charnock, awoke memories of the founder of Calcutta, who, before his fortunes were made, must have been more or less of a friendless wanderer in an eastern land; perhaps it was because the magistrate was waiting for a file to be brought from the record office; but the spirit of cross-examination entered into him. "One glass of arrak--is that all you've had?"
The loafer paused, an expression of the utmost candour came to his face. "All I've 'ad to-day, sir, s'elp me, 'cos I 'adn't a pice more left ter buy a bit o' food with. Only the hart hanner I spent Christian-like on a ticca ghari ter try an' get seggergated afore it was too late. An' they said I was drunk!"
The mournful cadence of his voice was irresistible.
"Chaprassi, take that man to the serai, and tell the darogah to give him some breakfast. I'll pay for it. Now you go quietly, my man, and sleep it off. You'll have got rid of the plague by morning."
The file had come in from the record office, I was immersed in the endless, hopeless attempt to drag truth from the bottom of the well in a land suit; so I thought no more of Job Charnock until I met the civil surgeon at tennis in the evening.
"Yes," he replied to my query, "Segregation was on his rounds again this morning. You're new, but he is a regular institution here. He gets the funks on board, generally about a month after a bout, and comes to every one of us in turn to be segregated. I think he is a bit looney on the plague--has a real phoby about it. He'll get it, I expect, some day, from sheer fright--but there's none about at present."
The something likeable in the man's face, however, returned to memory with the obvious fact that he had appeared chiefly concerned to "do no 'arm to anyone." So the next morning, having ten minutes to spare on my way from the city, I called in at the serai. It was like all other serais: a dreary cloistered square, deserted absolutely between five a.m. until eight p.m.; that is to say, the hours during which travellers are on the road. Now, close on nine o'clock, only the muck of last night's bivouac remained. A sweeper, with a broom and a basket, was busy removing some of the more salient rubbishes. Otherwise all was still as the grave. But, seated on a rush stool in one of the little octagonal turret rooms, which, built on either side of the gateway, are reserved for European wayfarers, I found Job Charnock. He had evidently paid a visit to the well, for he looked cleaner and was distinctly sober, but he was more voluble than ever.
"I give 'arf the breakfast you stood me away to the sweeper, sir," he said, "an' 'e brought me some omum water as cured me in a jiffy. That's all I was wantin', sir, an' none o' them doctors could spare me 'arf a pint. It seems strange, don't it, sir? And ter think the 'arm as I might do going about with the plague spot under my harm, as it's all writ truthful in that book by Mr. 'Arrison Hainsworth, Esquire. 'Ave you read it, sir?" he asked blandly.
I assured him I had, told him he was a fool, advised him to go north to the new railway to find work, gave him five rupees to find his way there. It was indiscreet and quite contrary to the rules of the Charity Organisation Society, but as I have said, something in the man's face appealed to me.
Thereafter he passed from my memory under the usual pressure of work and worry which is the lot of an Indian official.