"Tikka-gharri lao,[56] you lazy little 'ound! Don't I speak plain English?" The Professor made it a practice to "rot" when not working—hoping thus even in India to retain sanity and the broad and wholesome outlook, for he was a very short-tempered person, easily roused to dangerous wrath.
[56] Bring.
A carriage, upholding a pony who, in return, spasmodically moved the carriage which gave evidence of having been where moths break through and steal, lumbered into the Club garden, and the Professor, imploring the jehu not to let the pony "die on him" in the Hibernian sense of the expression, gingerly entered.
"Convey me to the gilded Potipharparian 'alls, Arthur," said he.
"Sahib?"
"Why don't you listen? Palangur Hill ki pas[57] And don't forget you've to get me there at 5 p.m. C.T. or S.T.—I leave it to you, partner."
[57] To.
On arrival, the Professor concluded that if he had arrived at 5 p.m. C.T. he ought to have come at 5 p.m. S.T., or vice versa; as what he termed 'the show' was evidently about over. Fortune favours all sorts of people.
His hostess, who looked as though she had come straight out of the Bible via Bond Street, and his host, who looked as though he had never come out of Petticoat Lane at all, both accused him of being unable to work out the problem of "Find Calcutta Time given the Standard Time," and he professed to be proud to be able to acknowledge the truth of the compliment.
"Come and be presented to Meester and Meesers Carneelius Garsling-Green,
M.P.," said the lady, waddling before him; and her husband echoed:—