off his waterlogged garments, were, 'Where is my other pump?'
As soon as we told him that it was behind the dune, he forgot all his sorrows, roused himself, and started off with the intention of securing it with the least possible delay. On the way he expressed repeated regrets for his coat, his muffler, his socks, and his gloves, by turns berating us, fools that we were, for having stripped them off him in such a hurry. If we had only left them on he complained, they would not have been soiled by contact with dust and dirt. We were no better than rustic clowns; we had never seen such things; this was the burden of his refrain as he poured out his grievances. In his grief for his gorgeous clothes he forgot the claims of his body which a short while ago he had been afraid of exposing to a single drop of water. He was a striking instance of how the means often overshadows the end.
It was after two o'clock when our dinghy came back to our landing-place. Apparelled in Indra's shawl, and girded with mine, the foul smell of which he had previously remarked upon, Natunda hurried home, repeatedly giving it as his deliberate opinion that my shawl was too nauseating to use as a door-mat. However that may have been, we were full of joy at the thought that instead of falling a prey to wolves he had returned intact. Submitting to his reiterated abuse and unceasing insolence with smiling faces, we concluded our eventful trip by returning home clad only in our dhotis and trembling in every limb in that frosty, winter night. Thus ended our last trip in the dinghy. We were never to set foot in it again.
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