“By thunder,” enthused the Briton, as we turned out into the sunlight once more, “it’s a new scheme all right, absolutely unique. It’s sure to attract attention mighty quick.”
It did. So quickly, in fact, that had there been a white policeman within call when we broached the subject to the American consul, we should have found lodging at once in two nicely padded chambers of the city hospital.
“Did you two lunatics,” shrieked my fellow-countryman, from behind the protecting bulwark of his desk, “ever hear of Caste? Would the Europeans patronize you? You bet they would—with a fine coat of tar and feathers! You’d need it, too, for those long, slim knives the runners carry. Of all the idiotic schemes! Why, you—you—don’t you know that’s a crime—or, if it isn’t, the governor would make it one in about ten minutes. Go lie in the shade somewhere until you get your senses—if you’ve got one!”
Years ago, I came to the conclusion that the day of the enterprising young man is past. But it was cruel of the consul to put the matter so baldly. Luckily, the Englishman possessed four cents or we should have been denied the bitter joy of drowning our grief and dissolving our partnership in a glass of arrack.
From the distance of the western world the rate in Almeida’s boarding house—a half rupee a day—does not seem exorbitant. It was, however. In the native restaurants that abounded in Colombo, one could live on half that amount; and as for lodging—what utter foolishness to pay for the privilege of sleeping on a short-legged table when the ground was so much softer? No sooner, therefore, had a pawnbroker of Pettah appraised my useless winter garments at two rupees than I paid my bill at the “Original Boarding House” and became resident at large.
On the edge of the native section stood an eating shop that had won the patronage of half the beachcombers in the city. It was a low, thatched shanty, constructed, like its neighbors, chiefly of bamboo. The front wall—unless the canvas curtain that warded off the blazing sunshine be reckoned such—was all doorway, before which stood a platform heaped high with multicolored tropical fruits.
A dozen white men bawled out a greeting as I pushed aside the curtain and crowded into a place on one of the creaking benches around the table. At the entrance stood the proprietor, guarding a home-made safe, and smiling so vociferously upon whomever added to its contents that his circle comb rose and fell with the exertion. Plainly in sight of the yawning customers, in a smoke-choked back room, two chocolate-colored cooks, who had evidently divided between them a garment as large as a lady’s handkerchief, toiled over a long row of kettles.
The dinner was table d’hôte, and cost four cents. A naked boy set before me a heaping plate of rice, four bananas, a glass of tea, and six small dishes of curried vegetables, meat, and shrimps. The time had come when I must learn, like my companions, to dispense with table utensils. I began the first lesson by following the movements of my fellow-guests. Each dug in the center of his mound of rice a hole of the size of a coffee-cup. Into this he dumped the curries one after another and buried them by pushing in the sides of the excavation. The interment finished, he fell upon the mess with both hands, and mixed the ingredients as the “board-bucker” mixes concrete—by shoveling it over and over.
Let no one fancy that the Far East has no etiquette of the table. It was the height of ill-breeding, for example, to grasp a handful of food and eat it from the open palm. Obviously, the Englishman beside me had received careful Singhalese training. Without bending a joint of his hand, he plunged it into the mixture before him, drew his fingers closely together, and, thrusting his hand to the base of the thumb into his mouth, sucked off the food by taking a long, quick breath.
I imitated him, gasped, choked, and clutched at the bench with both hands, while the tears ran in rivulets down my cheeks. ’Twas my introduction to the curries of Ceylon. A mouthful of cayenne pepper would have tasted like ice cream in comparison. The stuff was so calorific—in chillies, not in temperature—that it burned my fingers.