At once a mighty roar of “No!” went up. Then both the old men erupted again, shrieking. Mrs. Mehta, anger lending strength to her vocal chords, at last called out indignantly, “You’re naughty, and the meeting is now dismissed!” And so, amid shouts of merriment, we broke up.
I had no more lectures scheduled for a time, and accepted with pleasure the invitation of Mrs. Norman Odling to visit her at Kalimpong, in the shadow of Mt. Everest, three hundred and fifty miles north of Calcutta.
In preparing for this excursion I had to decide whether to take Joseph. He was a silent man. Whenever I had requested him to perform any service, from getting the laundry together to looking after the luggage, he had never answered yes or no but had only shaken his head—not a regular shake, but a nodding from side to side as though he were saying, “Well, well, well!” I had usually sighed, “Never mind.” I had grown rather exasperated with what seemed his deplorable lack of enthusiasm, although Anna Jane appeared to like him; being busy in other directions, especially with beaux, she had left many things for him to attend to. Finally I informed Cook’s that we were departing for the North and would like somebody else. When their representative came around to investigate, he said to Joseph, “Do you wish to go with Mrs. Sanger?” Joseph shook his head.
“There you are!” I exclaimed. “He doesn’t want to go.”
At that Joseph put up pleading hands and spoke in Hindustani.
“Yes, he does,” said the Cook’s man. “When he shakes his head ‘no’ he means ‘yes.’”
Before we started Joseph mentioned to me how wintry it was in the Himalayas; he must have an overcoat. I asked whether he had ever been there.
“Yes.”
“Did you have a coat then?”
“Yes.”