Free Hindoo Holiday by J.R. Ackerley

me.
    â€œI suppose he is indispensable to you?” I asked.
    â€œNo, he is not indispensable to me. I will send him to you if you wish. I will send him to you tomorrow morning.”
    â€œDo you think he will be pleased to come?”
    â€œOh, he will be very pleased—especially if you pay him two or three rupees a month.”
    After this neither of us said anything for some time, and then His Highness remarked with finality:
    â€œNo, he is not at all indispensable to me.”
    But this morning a tonga arrived at the Guest House bearing two men I had never seen before, with a letter from His Highness. It ran as follows:
    â€œDEAR MR. ACKERLEY,—Here are two men who know English and Hindi very well. The bearer of this is called Gupta, he is my assistant librarian of Hindi Books; and the other called Champa Lal, he is my icemaker. You can choose any one of them, and they will do for preliminary work well. Perhaps they might ask for some wages, and I think two rupees per month will do. Excuse pencil and paper.”
    To which I replied:
    â€œDEAR MAHARAJAH SAHIB,—Your messengers have arrived, but I do not know quite what to do. Indeed they have both uttered remarks in English, but neither of them appears to understand my replies. I thought to myself, there is nothing to choose between them in looks, I will take the one who is the sharper in wits. So I returned to them and said:
    â€˜I only want one of you. Which of you speaks the better English, for I will engage him?’
    The silence was at last broken by the icemaker, who said:
    â€˜I do not understand.’
    â€”and then by the assistant librarian, who said:
    â€˜Your English is very high.’
    I return them both, and hope I may still be allowed to have the dispensable valet, this morning or at 2.30 P.M., for even if he cannot teach me Hindi, I should like to make a drawing of him.”
    The valet came this afternoon. I was lying on my sofa reading, when the light flicked across the page, and looking up I saw him standing in the curtained doorway. He bobbed a nervous salaam; I beckoned him inside and, throwing a rapid glance over his shoulder, he shuffled his laceless European shoes from his bare feet, pulled the curtain right back so that the open doorway was unveiled, and came a few paces further into the room. I indicated a chair, but it was too near me; he took the first at hand, and moved it back so that it stood in the doorway.
    I had already learnt a few Hindi phrases by heart: “Good day,” “How are you?” “It is a nice day,” “Don’t talk so fast”; but I found I did not now believe in their pronunciation as much as when I had addressed them to myself; and since he only nodded to the first three, or uttered a throaty monosyllabic sound, I had no opportunity to air my “Don’t talk so fast” composition, which therefore remains in my memory as the only phrase I got right. He was clearly very ill at ease and anxious to please me; but I soon realized that he did not really understand anything I said and was trying to guess from my expression what his response should be, so that most of the time a timid smile trembled on his lips and eyes, ready to vanish at the slightest sign of severity. And whenever I looked down for a moment to consult my dictionary, his head went round at once, I noticed, to the open door, through which he could see across the gravel space the usual crowd of servants drowsing in the shade of the neem tree in front of the kitchen. So I gave it up at last and said I was going to draw him, but the moment I rose to get my sketch-book he was out of his chair and watching me in apparent alarm. I tried to convey with smiles and gestures that my intention was quite harmless, but although I got him to sit down again, I could not get him to sit still, and at length, in despair, told him to curtain the doorway, for I could not go on if he kept turning round to look