'So you've managed to get away?' I exclaimed, as he dawdled up to me at the hot and dusty station.
'Yaas,' he drawled, fixing his eye-glass, and lighting a cigarette. 'I've—p'f—managed to get away. Maharaj seems to have thought—p'f—it would be cheepah in the end to pay me out than to keep me.'
'You don't mean to say he offered to lend you money?' I cried.
'No; not exactly that: I offahed to borrow it.'
'From the man you call a nigger?'
His smile spread broader over his face than ever. 'Well, we borrow from the Jews, yah know,' he said pleasantly, 'so why the jooce shouldn't we borrow from the heathen also? Spoiling the Egyptians, don't yah see?—the same as we used to read about in the Scripchah when we were innocent kiddies. Like marriage, quite. You borrow in haste—and repay at leisure.'
He strolled off and took his seat. I was glad to get rid of him at the main line junction.
In accordance with my usual merciful custom, I spare you the details of our visit to Agra, Muttra, Benares. At Calcutta, Elsie left me. Her health was now quite restored, dear little soul— I felt I had done that one good thing in life if no other—and she could no longer withstand the higher mathematics, which were beckoning her to London with invisible fingers. For myself, having so far accomplished my original design of going round the world with twopence in my pocket, I could not bear to draw back at half the circuit; and Mr. Elworthy having willingly consented to my return by Singapore and Yokohama, I set out alone on my homeward journey.
