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The Munshi regarded him with mild reproach. "Nay, sahib, the meanest of men may not fail in hospitality it is a duty incumbent upon all; but the power of foreseeing events is a direct gift from Heaven, and will move the Rajah to desire greatly the linking of his fortunes with your honour's.
In these circumstances, all that Gerrard could do was to leave the paper for her consideration, with the most persuasive letter that he and Munshi Somwar Mal could frame in collaboration, and announce that he hoped to find her Highness in a better mind when he returned in three or four days' time.
"The venerable munshi was delighted to see me, and insisted on my sharing his evening meal. We moved in the direction of his home, and he gave me the chit-chat of the day. Until our repast was finished I did not mention the object of my visit.
That letter, carrying the tidings of my mother's anxieties, was my first one to my father. I did not know how to begin or end a letter, or anything at all about it. I went to Mahananda, the estate munshi. The resulting style of address was doubtless correct enough, but the sentiments could not have escaped the musty flavour inseparable from literature emanating from an estate office.
"'It is grievous, I returned, 'and it is owing to trouble there that I am now here. "'Indeed. And what may the trouble be? As I told you this afternoon, I have friends in the village, and am consequently interested. "'Aye, aye, tell him the story you have just told me, called out the munshi. "Courteously the stranger awaited my response, in his eyes an anxious look of inquiry.
"'Perhaps, perhaps, but only time will decide, he replied, cautiously. 'You must wait and see. "'Wait! wait! I cried, impatiently. 'There is no time to wait. I must act, and that quickly. "The munshi looked at me commiseratingly, but contented himself with a shrug of his shoulders. "Just then a servant approached, and whispered in his master's ear.
He thanked me courteously, and said he would return in the evening, when, perhaps, I would be more at leisure. I had cut short this interview, paying, indeed, little heed to the stranger, for I had noticed that my friend, the munshi, not knowing of my presence in the inn, was in the act of taking his departure. I hastened after him.
There is also another small matter in which this slave has to-night done what he could to add a stone to the pillar of your honour's prosperity." "I wish you had asked me first. But let me know what obligations you have undertaken for me." "The youth, the son of shame, dared to inquire in confidence what were the weaknesses of the Protector of the Poor!" said the Munshi, in an awful whisper.
The idea of a hunting expedition was strange in the desolate state of; the district, but Gerrard hoped to gain some information from the strangers, and ordered that they should be brought to his tent. As he rose to go forward and welcome them, a low voice that of the munshi sitting on the ground at his side arrested him.
And when, at last, she begged that the boy might enter the service of the Sirkar as a wielder of the pen in an office in Kot Ghazi, and strive to become a leading munshi and then a Deputy-Saheb, a babu in very fact, my father was wroth, and said the boy would be a warrior yea, though he had to die in his first skirmish and ere his beard were grown.
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