“Ah! you may sneer,” he retorted, “but I tell you the truth.”
His face flushed and his lip quivered. He brought his fist down on the table.
“I tell you my father,—ah! but never mind my father.” His voice failed him.
“Certainly,” I replied. “Only get on with your story.”
“I came out to India from Boston as a young man,” he continued, “either in ’66 or ’68, I forget which.”
“Try ’67,” I suggested.
“It was not ’67,” he exclaimed angrily, “it was either ’66 or ’68.”
“Or some other date. However, that’s but a detail. Proceed.”
“Sir, you can make sport of me, but what I am telling you is God’s truth. May I be struck dead if one lie passes my lips. I came out to plant coffee; I thought, like many others, that I had only to cut down the jungle and put in coffee plants, and make my everlasting fortune.”
“And didn’t you?” I asked, glancing at his dilapidated old helmet that hung over the corner of the sideboard.