and dhurmsâlas--or out in the open--somehow my day clothes were always being stolen. As soon as ever I got a new outfit it disappeared, until at last Dhurm Singh said,--"
"Yes! what did Dhurm Singh say?"
"That it was very peculiar, and that as the thieves didn't seem to fancy my English clothes it might be--more economical--" Here a half-embarrassed laugh finally interrupted the sentence. "I don't think I was sorry," went on the speaker hastily; "I found out afterwards that the people don't understand it. One old fellow asked me why it was that though a native convert always had to wear trousers like the sahib-logue, the 'missen' people preferred to preach without them? Of course it was an exaggeration both ways, but the more I see of these people, the more necessary it seems to me that we should be ourselves armed at all points before beginning the attack. And then their poverty, their patience, the insanitary conditions--the needless suffering! Surely before we can touch their minds--"
"I know," broke in the doctor cynically. "Medical missions, et cetera; so it has come to that already, has it, old chap?"
"I don't know what you mean by its having come to that," retorted Sonny at a white heat; "but if you think it right to live in the lap of luxury while these brothers and sisters of ours--"
So the arguments began again, more fiercely than ever, for the two fought at closer quarters--so close that ofttimes the doctor had to retreat from his own position and seek another, because Sonny baba had already entrenched himself therein; the which is a direful offence, rousing determined resistance in a real argufier.
Despite this, Sonny baba rented a room in the doctor's house, and shared the doctor's dinners and library and hospital after the easy Indian fashion, while Dhurm Singh swaggered about among the dispensary badge-wearers, explaining at full length why he did not wear a badge like the rest of them. His sahib had not yet settled which branch of the public service he would exalt by his presence. He was young, doubtless, as yet, but he made strides. Two years ago he had found him in a very poor "naukeri" (service), in which he paid all the rupees and no one gave him anything; a topsy-turvy arrangement: not that his sahib needed the paisas. He was rich as a nawab. Then he thought of being a padre sahib; now it was doctoré department, but in his, Dhurm Singh's opinion, that was not much either. Personally he would just as soon wear no badge, as one of those with "Charitable Dispensary" on it. But only God knew where the Baba-sahib might end; at Simla, as "burra Lât sahib," no doubt. Till then it was more dignified to refrain from ignoble badges of which afterwards one might be ashamed.
And while he talked in this fashion he sat in the sunshine combing his long hair, and piously wondering how folk could defile their insides with tobacco. Then he would stroll off into the shadow and bring out the black lump of dreams. Yet if Sonny baba came out into the verandah calling after the Indian fashion for some one, the broad northern accent was always ready with its "Huzoor!"
So the months passed in preparations, and the angelic voice might have been heard to sing "Lead, kindly Light" more often than any other hymn in the book. About this time, also, Sonny baba speaking of Dhurm Singh and his ways, used to quote in rather a patronising manner a certain text regarding those who might expect to be beaten with few stripes--a speech which roused the doctor to vigorous retort. He had observed, he said, that the remark held good about most honest, healthy men who could play singlestick.
The fact being, however, that Sonny baba was beginning to get obstinate, as is only natural when a man passes five and twenty. It was time, he felt, to begin work in earnest; for the enthusiasm and the faith and the fervour were as hot as ever in him still. Looking back on the last three years he hardly understood why he had done so little.
"There seems so much to learn before one can even begin on the problem," he sighed, "and then, dear as the old man is, I really think Dhurm Singh is a drawback. I hoped when we left the Army--but indeed, Taylor, I think even you will allow that he is hardly the sort of man for a missionary's servant."
"Well, I don't know that I should classify him under that head; but then," he paused, thinking, perhaps, that when all was said and done the master was no more fit for the place than the servant.
"I'm glad you agree with me," put in Sonny eagerly, "for I've quite made up my mind to a change. You have no idea how the old fellow hectors over getting me a pint of milk or a couple of eggs. You would think I was about to loot a whole village. I must own that I invariably get what I want--that, too, without the least unpleasantness; but it is not edifying. Not the sort of thing that ought to go on. Then his habit of eating opium. It does not seem to hurt him, I own; but that again is not what it ought to be. It is bad enough to belong to a race who, while they go about with words of condemnation on their lips--"
"Pardon me," murmured the doctor, "I pass--"
"--on their lips, are at the same time battening on the proceeds of an infamous monopoly of a drug dealing death and disease to a whole continent."
"One-third of one per cent of the total population," murmured the doctor again.
"You forget the opium grown in China," put in Sonny with great heat.
"My dear fellow, isn't there a story somewhere about the Emperor of China's clothes? If I remember right he forgot to put 'em on, and then every one was afraid to tell him he was naked. It appears to me that in this opium business the good gentleman hasn't a rag of reason for complaint, but that you are all afraid to say so. If we can prevent our subjects from growing poppy except under supervision, why can't he? It isn't Jonah's gourd, but a three month crop."
Sonny baba began to walk up and down the room excitedly. "It is perfectly inexplicable to me how a man like you--"
"Excuse me," interrupted the doctor. "I'll explain. I'm forty-four years of age. Two and twenty years of that I lived in a parish in Scotland where every decent, respectable body would have thought shame to himself if he didn't have more whisky than he could carry on market days. The other two and twenty I've spent in India. Out of cantonments, where they've learnt the trick from us, I only remember having met two drunken men in all those years, and though I see more of the natives than most people, I can only call to mind three who might be said to have suffered seriously from the effects of opium.[13] But it is a subject which it is quite useless to discuss. It turns on a question of heredity, like most things. The Indo-Germanic races never have taken and never will take to narcotics, so naturally they abuse them--and drink instead. Chacun à son gout."
"And mine is to give poor old Dhurm Singh an extra pension when I go itinerating, and send him back to end his days in peace in his village."
The doctor whistled. "Don't you wish you may get him to do it?"
"He must if he is a hindrance to the work--"
"And if your work is a hindrance to him? That's what it comes to all round. He was put in charge of you, and mark my words, Dhurm Singh will do it dhurm nâl until he goes to settle the vexed question."
"What vexed question?"
"Whether his work or yours was the better."
III.
"Dhurm Singh?"
"Huzoor."
After
