Old Kotchibad frightfully excited. Wires up to F.O. post haste: "Strictly forbidden by Koran to circumambulate anything save father's tomb and tomb of the Prophet—can't possibly circumambulate Viceroy." Awful joke. I say, won't you have any simpkin?'
I gasped. That little A.D.C. was so unexpected.
'Simpkin?' I said. 'What's that?'
He looked round at me as if I were very young or else trying to pull his leg, I don't think he could quite make up his mind which.
'What, not know what simpkin is? Well, I'm blest. Don't know why you should know, though, if you've not been in India. Don't call it simpkin at home, do you? Haven't been home for so long, blest if I don't almost forget. Call it fizz there, though, I believe. Simpkin's what the natives call it. Can't say champagne, you know, can't get it round their tongues—the sound, I mean, not the drink, you know, they can do that fast enough—so they call it simpkin. Just the same stuff, though. Have some, won't you?'
I had some simpkin while that little A.D.C. took what I guess he would call a 'breather.'
'Know the Begum of Ghosain?' he went on again. 'What, not know her? Thought everybody knew the Begum of Ghosain—the lady who's really purdah, but can't stop gadding about, so goes about with a table-cloth on her head—thought everybody knew the Begum of Ghosain. Well, she was comin' up to Delhi—catch the Begum missin'
