“Why?” I asked.
“He trades like a fool, letting a rupee’s worth go for a pice.”
“Let him,” I laughed, “so long as he keeps away from me.”
“And yours?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Come in and drink of tea with me,” he invited.
So I went in and we sat eye to eye, face to face, across his little teakwood table, each squatting on his heels, and drank tea and talked of many things.
“Now that we have said all the useless things, tell me what is at the bottom of thy heart,” Ali demanded. Up there the important things are kept for the dessert of the talk.
He was an old friend, with his coal-black eyes, great hairy arms and rippling black beard.
“Thus it was, heart of my soul,” I said, laying hold of a lock of his beard up under his green turban, in token of entire truth-telling. “Thus it was”—and I tugged at the lock of beard. So I told him the tale, from the time of my going to Karen until the time of my coming to Kalgai town and the arrival of Pra Oom Bwaht.