“Why do you go like that? Feel sick?”
“No. I don’t know. I seemed to remember something—in a book. I dream about it. There’s a nasty blue room with a mud floor. And Something. Beastly. Makes you yell out and you can’t. You can’t run away either. But the Sword dream is lovely.”
Lucille appeared puzzled and put this incoherence aside.
“What a baby never to see ellyfunts! I’ve seen lots. Hundreds. Zoo. Circuses. Persessions. Camels, too.”
“Oh, I used to ride a camel every day. There was one in the compound with his oont-wallah,[[14]] Abdul Ghaffr; and Khodadad Khan used to beat the oont-wallah on cold mornings to warm himself.”
[14] Camel-man.
“What’s an oont-wallah?”
“Don’t you know? Why, he’s just the oont-wallah, of course. Who’d graze the camel or load it up if there wasn’t one?”
At tea in the nursery the young lady suddenly remarked:—
“I like you, Boy. You’re worth nine Haddocks.”