"Swindlah, mebhoy," said I, addressing him familiarly, in his own native language, in which I am a proficient, and shall now give a translation, "What's up?"
"Alibi Pasha," he replied, bending his head, and looking out of the corner of his eyes—a trick he has when he means mischief—(I know the old rascal by this time)—"Is it on or off?"
For the moment I had forgotten our wager of the previous night. I confess I had imbibed so much loshun that for once and away I was not quite certain whether I was actually sober or not—nor, indeed, did I decide the point until I had argued it out myself, and settled that, if I went to bed in my bhootahs (worn here on the foot, and very much worn under it), I must be more or less inebriated, but that, if I assumed the ordinary shimmy dinnee—(do you remember my song on this Indian night-habit, to the tune of "Bonnie Dundee"?—it was in the cold weather, when the stinging winter night-fly is about, and I couldn't find the article of apparel anywhere,—
Then haul down my curtains, and call up my men,
And search every cupboard agen and agen.
It has a frilled border as far as the knee—
It's the prettiest thing is my shimmy dinwee.
But, as I didn't quote this to Swindlah Khan, I only allude to it here, and you will find it in extenso, as they did in the linen-press, further on, during the course of these Memoirs)—and retired to my dhownee (bed), I must be all right. Dhownee v. Bhootah, and the first won. Yet next morning it was with difficulty I could exactly recall the term of the wager.
Waiting for the Colonel.