“Will some of you chaps tell me,” I interrupted, “why the guard ordered those other natives out of here, and then let you in?”
The drummers glared at me a moment in silence, looked at each other, and turned to stare out of the windows. Most grossly, evidently, had I insulted them. But even an insult cannot keep an Oriental long silent. The travelers fidgeted in their seats, nudged each other, and focused their stare once more upon me.
“Know you, sir,” said the most portly of the group, with severe countenance, “know you that those were base coolies, who are not allowed to ride in the same compartment with white gentlemen. We,” and the brass buttons of his embroidered jacket struggled to perform their office, “are high-caste Singhalese, sir. Therefore may we ride with sahibs.”
CHAPTER XIII
SAWDUST AND TINSEL IN THE ORIENT
The train rumbled into Colombo in the late afternoon. I made my way at once through the pattering throng to Almeida’s. In the roofless dining-room sat Askins, puffing furiously at his clay pipe and scribbling with a sputtering pen in one of several half-penny notebooks scattered on the table before him. At the further end lolled the Swede and two fellow-beachcombers, staring at the writer as at the performer of some mighty miracle.
“Doing?” grinned the Irishman, in answer to my question. “Oh! Just another of my tales. You know you can’t knock around British-India for twenty years without picking up a few things. About the time Ole took his first bath I began jotting down some of the mix-ups I’ve wandered into. That lot went to amuse Davy Jones when a tub I was playing second engineer on threw up the sponge in the Bay of Bengal. Later on I knocked the best of the yarns together again, and I tear off another now and then when life gets dull.
“Published? Oh, I may shove them off one of these days on some penny weekly. But if I don’t, the coroner can have them for his trouble when I come to furl my mainsheet. He won’t find anything else.”
“Vonderful!” cried Ole, with a Dr. Watson accent, “I haf study in der school an’ I rhead sometimes a story in der dog-vatch; min der man vitch can make der stories! Vonderful, by Gott!”
“By the way, Franck,” said Askins, gathering the notebooks together, “how about the yellow-birds who tried to shave your sky-piece over in Kandy?”
“Why, who has been telling you—?” I gasped.