Tiglath-Pileser shook his head. “You would be sorry,” said he. “It would be a mistake,” but only I saw the ambiguity in his eye.
“It is not your Honour’s custom,” returned Atma, simply. “Sropo, then, will go?”
“Call Masuddi,” said Tiglath-Pileser. “It is a serious matter, this of wives.”
Round the corner of the verandah came Masuddi, shy and broadly smiling, with an end of his cotton shirt in the corner of his mouth and pulling at it, as other kinds of children pull at their pinafores.
“Masuddi,” said Tiglath-Pileser, “last year you made a marriage in your house, and now you have a son. Er—which young woman did you marry?”
Masuddi’s smile broadened; he cast down his eyes and scrabbled the gravel about with his foot. “Tuktoo,” he said shamefacedly.
“Well, there is no harm in that. What is the name of your son?”
Masuddi looked up intelligently. “How should he have a name?” he asked. “He has not yet four months. He came with the snow. When he has a year, then he will get a name. My padre-folk—Brahmun—will give it.”
“But you will say what it is to be,” I put in.
“Nā,” said Masuddi, “the padre-folk will say—to their liking.”