Page:Letters from India Vol 2.pdf/24

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LETTERS FROM INDIA.

my room, looking very fine, and as he went through the passage he taunted my little boy with it. Mine came in very unhappy and repentant, but I said it was quite impossible to reward him, as he never would learn anything if he loitered at home; so he walked out again, borrowed a sheet of paper, and said he would write a petition for himself, to show that he had learnt something. He brought it in, with one of the hirkarus, to present it; it was a good specimen of a short request. However, I said I would think about it, but could not let him have his turban directly; and in about two hours Rosina, and the jemadar, and two or three others, came to beg I would let him have it, for he had been crying so they did not know what to do with him. ‘And he is so young child, and his little face is grown so small, it quite melancholy, and he say he so ashamed to wait at dinner with the choota lady’s boy quite smart;’ so of course I gave way, as it is always a pity to vex a child, and his face really was grown small. The people here always put me in mind of Number Nip’s friends, who were made of turnips, and withered in twenty-four hours. They have no