I speak only one, and I do queer things to that one lots of times.
But Lal doesn't try to impress me with his superiority just because he knows a lot more than I do—quite the reverse.
His wages are a rupee a day, out of which he feeds himself. That was his own price. I'm paying him all he asks. I've been told that I'm paying him too much, that he has stung me. A rupee is thirty-two cents!
But he is a superior guide. He admits it himself. To prove it he showed me a sheaf of recommendations from American globe-trotters whom he has guided across India in days gone by.
A good many of those recommendations are frayed at the edges through much showing, but I wouldn't mind having some of those names on a blank check, with privilege to write the rest of the check myself.
Lal tells me he is the "Professor" of the guides.
I hired him yesterday. He calls me "Master." That's regular. All servants and guides in India call their employers "Master."
With a two weeks' trip to plan across India, with a map of India, hotel guides and railroad time-tables, pencil and paper spread out before me in my room this afternoon, I said: "Draw up a chair, Lal, and sit down. Here is a two hours' job before us."
"Excuse me, 'Master'," Lal said, "but if 'Master' will excuse me I will not sit in 'Master's' presence."
Get that?