It was a good idea; and the next registered letter carried no additional money order, but instead a one-way ticket, second class, from Shanghai.
This was efficacious; and when, six weeks later, another letter arrived from Shanghai, Prem Singh came to the house in a tremble of excitement.
“Mester, you know Salina Cruz? This country? Canada? I guess not. Meeseeco? I guess maybe! My brother come Salina Cruz. English read.” He always used the word “read” indiscriminately for read or write, reading or writing.
Inclosed with the sheet covered with Indian script was a small slip bearing a message in English. “Arrive Salina Cruz November 29,” it read. “Send money.”
“I guess my brother read maybe, himself,” announced Prem Singh, scanning it closely. “Pretty smart man, my brother. English pretty good speak. My country read easy, English read little. Me not any. Not smart, me.” Then he shook his head. “I guess this not any my brother read.”
I guessed not either. It was a very fair handwriting indeed.
“You think all right send money Salina Cruz, Mester?”
I did not think so, emphatically not. Prem Singh was in doubt. His natural caution warned him against such a move. On the other hand his affection for his brother, his instinctive generosity, his desire to hasten in any way possible his brother’s approach to the land of promise, urged him on. In the end he decided to wait for a more definite request.
It was not long in coming, arriving in the form of a telegram almost on the heels of the letter. “Send seventy dollars, Kala Singh, care British Consul, Salina Cruz, Mexico,” the message ran. Evidently this brother was no fool.
Prem Singh immediately dispatched a hundred by registered mail, bemoaning only the fact that the telegraph company would not transmit money to that point.