‘Things have come to a pretty pass since the Khan has brought that boy with him!’ said he indignantly to the Jemadar when they were alone.
‘How? has he interfered with you, as he appears to wish to do with everyone else?’
‘To be sure he has—it seems he can read; and the old fool, without thinking about it, gave him all my accounts of the Pagha to look over, instead of signing and passing them at once.’
‘And he discovered—’
‘No, nothing in them, Alla be praised! so that there is a good round sum to divide between us; but he evidently suspected the rates of grain, which, believe me, Jemadar, you put too high.’
‘Not a whit, not a whit, since we have got the money.’
‘But I say it was, for it led the young prying fellow to ask the prices of grain in the bazaars, and of forage too; and, as it seems he is a Patél, he knows more about the matter than we do ourselves; so, when I gave him the accounts to-day, he showed me a memorandum of every day’s nerrikh,[[27]] and began comparing it as simply as possible with the account and showing the difference. By the Prophet! I could have struck him for his pretence of ingenuousness, and his seeming unconsciousness that he was detecting me. I tried to bully him, Jemadar Sahib, and said I had eaten the Khan’s salt longer than he had, and was not to be suspected by a boy; but it would not do; he told me not to be angry, that he might be mistaken, and that he would show the accounts to the Khan if I liked; but this you know would not have answered my purpose, for the old fellow would have fired up in a moment.’
[27]. Rate of prices.