‘Master please’—thus Sam howling and weeping after his kind—‘scuse [excuse] me. Gib tree day leave go Madras; too much trouble my house. My poor old mudder—booh! ooh!—plenty long time sick; master know well; too much old got; die last night. Booh! ooh! o-o-g-h!’
‘Why, what tomfoolery is this?’ I reply. ‘Your mother dead! Dead again! Why, man, how can that be? Four months ago you came and told me your mother was dead; you got four rupees advance; you went off, leaving the boy to do your work, and put me to no end of inconvenience. How can the old woman be dead again?’
But the fellow is not the least put out, and is quite equal to the ‘fix.’ ‘Master Sahib,’ he says, ‘I beg you scuse me. Sahib quite wrong. That time you speak I get leave, not my mudder—my wife’s mudder die. Master can look book!’
This random shot anent the ‘book’ alludes to my diary, in which the disbursement of the money has been entered, but not of course the casualty in his family. But I don’t lose the hint nevertheless, and I jot down a memorandum for future reference, should occasion require.
Then Sam goes on: ‘I no tell lie, sar. Plenty true; too much bobberee my house make. My fader gone Mysore’——
‘Why, bless my heart!’ I put in, ‘you told me ages ago your father died of cholera in Masulipatam.’
‘No, sar,’ says Sam; ‘never, sar! My grand-fader, scuse me. My wife she catch bad fever. No one single person my home got, make funeral-feast. Please, my master, advance half-month’s pay; gib four days’ leave. I too much hurry come back.’ Then he falls down, clasps my feet, calls me his father, brother; gets my consent to be absent, handles the rupees, and is off like a shot; not of course to his mother’s obsequies, for the old harridan has either been buried or burned years ago, or even now is all alive and kicking; but to some spun-out native theatricals, nautch, or tamasha (entertainment) in Black Town, where he feasts, drinks, and sleeps, and for a week at least I see his face no more.
History repeats itself; so does Sam. Months and months have passed; I am away from the neighbourhood of the Presidency town, and on the cool Neilgherry Hills. Enters one morning my man into my sitting-room, a letter in his hand, written in Tamil, and which he asks me to read, well knowing that I can’t, that except a very few of the commonest words of the language, which I speak with an uncertain not to say incorrect idea of their meaning, the tongue of his forebears, scriptural and oral, is to me Chaldee or Arabic.
‘Well! what’s up now?’ I say ‘Ennah?’ airing one of the expressions I know.
‘Master can see self. My uncle he send chit [note]; just now tappal-man [postman] bring. He write, say: “Sam! you plenty quick come Madras.” He put inside letter one five-rupee government note. Sahib can see. He tell me no one minute lose; take fire-road [railway]; too soon come; plenty, plenty trouble. My mudder dead.’