The man of inspiration sprang at the half-breed with a savage snarl and grasped him by the collar.
“What in hell do you mean by saying I haven’t any ticket? I’ll break your head.”
“But I know you haven’t,” persisted the collector, though somewhat meekly.
“Do you think that sahibs travel without tickets?” roared Marten, drawing the bit of cardboard from his pocket. “Take your bloody ticket, but don’t ever tell a sahib again that he’s stealing his rides.”
The Eurasian stretched out a hand to me, mumbling an apology, but was so overcome with fear and the dread of accusing another innocent sahib that Haywood stepped out behind us unchallenged.
We were waylaid by a peregrinating barber, and took turns in squatting on our heels for a quick shave and a slap in the face with a damp cloth. The service cost two pice (one cent). The barber was, perhaps, twelve years old, but an American “tonsorialist” would have gasped at the dexterity with which he manipulated his razor, as he would have wondered at several long, slim instruments, not unlike hat pins, which he rolled up in his kit as he finished. These were tools rarely employed on sahibs, but no native would consider a shave complete until his ears had been cleaned with one of them.
The city of Trichinopoly was some miles distant from the station. Though we were agreed that such action was the height of extravagance, we hailed a bullock cart and offered four annas for the trip to the town. An anna, let it be understood once for all, is the equivalent of the English penny. The cart was the crudest of two-wheeled vehicles, so exactly balanced on its axle that the attempt of two of us to climb in behind came near suspending the tiny, raw-boned bullock in mid-air. A screech from the driver called our attention to the peril of his beast, and under his directions we succeeded in boarding the craft by approaching opposite ends and drawing ourselves up simultaneously. The wagon was some four feet long and three wide, with an arched roof; too short to lie down in, too low to sit up in. One of us, in turn, crouched beside the driver on the knife-like edge of the head-board, with knees drawn up on a level with the eyes, clinging desperately to the projecting roof. The other two lay in close embrace within, with legs projecting some two feet behind.
The bullock was a true Oriental. After much urging, he set out at the mincing gait of a man in a sack-race—a lame man, of very limited vitality. A dozen heavy welts from the driver’s pole and as many shrill screams urged him, occasionally, into a trot. But it lasted always just four paces, at the end of which the animal shook his head slowly from side to side, as though shocked at his unseemly conduct, and fell again into a walk. The cart was innocent of springs, the roadway an excellent imitation of an abandoned quarry. Our sweltering progress was marked by a series of shocks as from an electric battery.
Marten ordered the driver to conduct us to an eating-shop. The native grinned knowingly and turned his animal into a by-path leading to a sahib hotel. When we objected to this as too high-priced, he shook his head mournfully and protested that he knew of no native shop which white men might enter. We bumped by a score of restaurants, but all bore the sign “For Hindus Only.”
At last, in a narrow alleyway, the bullock fell asleep before a miserable hut. The driver screeched, and a startled coolie tumbled out of the shanty. There ensued a heated debate in the dialect of southern India, in which Marten fully held his own. For a time, the coolie refused to run the risk of losing caste through our polluting touch, but the princely offer of three annas each won him over, and we disembarked, to squat on his creaking veranda.