Chapter XXVI: The Guide Who Wouldn't Sit in "master's" Presence

I call him Lal.

The rest of his name is too long for week-day use. He is my interpreter, my guide, my servant, my counselor, and my friend.

I have hired him for a two weeks' trip across India. He is considerable of an erudite gentleman--speaks several languages.

I speak only one, and I do queer things to that one lots of times.

But Lal doesn't try to impress me with his superiority just because he knows a lot more than I do--quite the reverse.

His wages are a rupee a day, out of which he feeds himself. That was his own price. I'm paying him all he asks. I've been told that I'm paying him too much, that he has stung me. A rupee is thirty-two cents!

But he is a superior guide. He admits it himself. To prove it he showed me a sheaf of recommendations from American globe-trotters whom he has guided across India in days gone by.

A good many of those recommendations are frayed at the edges through much showing, but I wouldn't mind having some of those names on a blank check, with privilege to write the rest of the check myself.

Lal tells me he is the "Professor" of the guides.

I hired him yesterday. He calls me "Master." That's regular. All servants and guides in India call their employers "Master."

With a two weeks' trip to plan across India, with a map of India, hotel guides and railroad time-tables, pencil and paper spread out before me in my room this afternoon, I said: "Draw up a chair, Lal, and sit down. Here is a two hours' job before us."

"Excuse me, 'Master'," Lal said, "but if 'Master' will excuse me I will not sit in 'Master's' presence."

Get that?

Royalty, don't you know?

Lal got "Master" in only three times in that sentence. I've known him to bring it in four times in a shorter one.

In addition to Lal's numerous duties--standing between me and the natives, brushing my clothes, looking after my laundry, making my bed in sleeping cars, and watching my goods and chattels while I take my meals in the dining car, and a score of other such duties, Lal was looking after "Master's" dignity.

Lal, old boy, after that gentle reminder, I'll know my place.

If there's nothing else to do, I'll let Lal fan me. I believe it's one of the prerogatives of Royalty to be fanned by vassals.

These Indian guides are a class by themselves. Many of them have traveled far.

Picked up by travelers for a tour across India, they are frequently taken to England and through Europe. For instance, Lal has been to England and Boston. In speaking of India he says: "My India," "my Calcutta," "my Bombay," and there isn't much about India he doesn't know.

They travel third-class, which is ridiculously cheap in India. The tourist, of course, pays his servant's railroad fare and must land him back to point of hiring him.

Lal's home is in Calcutta. I will have finished with him at Bombay and will have to send him back to Calcutta, across India, fifteen hundred miles, and that item of expense will be sixteen rupees six annas--all of five dollars and twenty cents.

It's hard lines to pour out money in this way on Lal--but Royalty is expensive anyway.