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nsciously, I guessed--no! I knew, that it was I--Stephen Denton, Esquire, out of Boston-- who was meant by that melodious and honorable appellation. For sahibs, at one o'clock in the morning, are a pretty rare article in the midst of the Colootallah!
The whispering continued, and I heard quite well. There was really no mystery to it--for, don't you see, most of those old buildings in the Colootallah were built many years ago, and since Calcutta was a swamp in these days and since wood and stone were rare, they built their houses with hollow tiles imported from Persia via Delhi--and these tiles act very much like telephones--sending tone waves in straight lines and at a considerable distance.
I was grateful for that--and for one more Indian peculiarity--namely the number and diversity of the many Indian languages and dialects which forces Hindus from different parts of the country to speak in English. There were two men whispering--doubtless either thugs or seditionist, at all events men who hated the very name at England and yet they had to speak in English to each other, to make them intelligible.
Funny, wasn't it?
I could hear just as plainly as through a telephone--with a perfect connection. The man who spoke first felt evidently peevish about the Sahib--about me. You should have heard the things he called me; not me alone, but also my father, my grandfather, most of my cousins and uncles and my whole family-tree straight down to Adam and Eve, and beyond, even. It seemed that he was appealing to the other man for help.
"Where is she? Where is she?" came the sibilant whisper; and then, with a splendid flow of Oriental imagery, "he--the Sahib--the this-andthat"-- more epithets--"has stolen her--the apple of my eyes, the well of my love, the stone of my contentment! Ah!"--and distinctly, through the hollow tiles, I could hear something like a forced, hypocritical sob--"she is a. pearl among pearls-- with lips like the crimson asoka flower, with teeth as virgin-white as the perfu