"I have been married to Ali for nineteen years. Some few months ago he became infatuated with this objectionable person, and married her. I called my neighbours and pointed out that Ali was not earning sufficient money to support me and his two children, let alone a new wife, a strumpet who was stealing my husband, and the bread from my children's mouths."
"Madam," I interrupted, seeing that No. 2 was on the verge of hysterics, "try and tell your sad story without calling the other lady names."
"She is everything I have called her and worse, Sahib. Wait until I tell you her private history!"
"No! no! Please get on with your story."
"She is a——"
"Will you be quiet?"
"And every day before she married Ali, and every day since he divorced her——"
"Buralli, for God's sake make this awful woman behave."
Buralli used a few expressions to the lady that I pretended not to understand, but which secretly gave me the greatest inward satisfaction. The woman was actually shocked into getting on with her story. She proceeded:
"Well, the neighbours talked Ali round. He did the right thing, and divorced her. Yesterday I heard he had sent to her for a praying mat. 'What does he want with a praying mat from her,' I said to myself; 'I'll go and see about it.' He works in a little hut beyond the market, and there, sure enough, I found the mat. I took it away and cut it into strips. I carried the strips to this woman's house and I said, 'There's your mat.' I threw the pieces in her face like this—I wish they had been stones. I said to her: 'Take your mat; when my husband wants a praying mat I'll make him a better one than you can. When he wants good food I'll prepare it for him better than you can. When he wants——'"