“LET’S have them up!” said Mr. Browne.

Mr. Browne was smoking a cigar after breakfast in his own house. There had been a time when Mr. Browne smoked his morning cigar on his way to office, but that was formerly. The department of the tea interest entrusted to Mr. Browne by his firm did not receive his active personal superintendence to the usual extent during the early months of the cold weather of ’91. I am aware of this because my husband is a senior partner. Not that the firm minded particularly—they liked young Browne, and I know that we were rather pleased at the time that he had discovered something in the world besides tea.

The Brownes had been settled some two or three days, and the wheels of their domestic arrangements had been running with that perfection of unobtrusive smoothness that can be fully experienced only in India, so far as I know. The meals had appeared and disappeared as by magic, the rooms had been swept and dusted and garnished while there was no eye to see, their wishes had been anticipated, their orders had been carried out in the night, as it seemed.

“Let’s have ’em up!” suggested Mr. Browne, with reference to the mysterious agents of all this circumstance. Helen wanted to see her servants.

“Bear-er!” shouted the sahib, young Browne.

“Hazur!”^[21] came the answer, in deep tones, from regions below, with a sound of bare feet hastily ascending the stair.

“Hazur bolya?”^[22] enquired the bearer in a subdued voice, partially presenting himself at the door.

“Ha!” said young Browne, “Dekko,^[23] bearer! You may sub nokar lao. Sumja? Memsahib dekna muncta!”^[24]

“Bahut atcha!”^[25] responded the bearer, and retired.

Helen sat up very straight, a little nervous air of apprehension mingled with her dignity. It had been no flippant business in her experience, to interview even a prospective under-housemaid, and presently she would be confronted by a whole retinue. “Why are they so long?” she asked.

“They’re putting on their clean clothes, and perhaps a little oil in your honour, my dear. They wish to make as radiant an appearance as possible.” And in a few minutes later the Brownes’ domestic staff followed its leader into the room, where it stood abashed, hands hanging down, looking at the floor. The bearer made a respectful showman’s gesture and awaited the pleasure of the sahib.

The sahib regarded them quizzically, and softly smoked on, with crossed legs.

“Dear me!” said Helen; “what a lot!”

“They are people of infinite leisure, my dear. The accomplishment of any one thing requires a great many of them. Above all it is necessary that they have peace and long hours to sleep, and an uninterrupted period in which to cook their rice and wash and anoint themselves. You will soon find out their little ways. Now let me explain. They don’t understand a word of English.

“The bearer you know. The bearer brought all the rest and is responsible for them. I have no doubt that he is in honoured receipt of at least half their first month’s wages for securing their situations for them. He is their superior officer, and is a person of weight and influence among them, and he’s a very intelligent man. I’ve had him four years. In that time he has looked after me very well, I consider, very well indeed. He knows all about my clothes and keeps them tidy—buys a good many of ’em—socks and ties and things,—takes care of my room, rubs me down every evening before dinner,—keeps my money.”

“Keeps your money, George!”

“Oh, yes! one can’t be bothered with money in this country.”

“Well!” said his wife. “I think it’s quite time you were married, George. Go on!”

George said something irrelevantly foolish and went on.

“He’s perfectly honest, my dear—entirely so. It would be altogether beneath his dignity to misappropriate. And I’ve always found him moderate in his overcharges. I took him partly because he had good chits and good manners, and partly because of his ingenuousness. I wanted a man for nine rupees—this chap stood out for ten. By way of argument he remarked that he would probably be purchasing a great many things for the sahib in the bazar—that the sahib might as well give ten in the first place! I thought there was a logical acumen about that that one didn’t come across every day, and engaged him on the spot.”

“But, George—it’s—it’s almost immoral!”

“Very, my dear! But you’ll find it saves a lot of trouble.”

Helen compressed her pretty lips in a way that spoke of a stern determination to adhere to the principles in vogue in Canbury.

“And I wouldn’t advise you to interfere with him too much, Helen, or he’ll pray to be allowed to go to his mulluk,^[26] and we shall lose a good servant. Of course, I’m obliged to jump down his throat once a month or so—they all need that—but I consider him a gentleman, and I never hurt his feelings. You observe the size of his turban, and the dignity of his bearing generally? Well, so much for the bearer—he gets ten rupees.”

“I’ve put it down, George.”

“Now the kitmutgar—he’s another old servant of mine—the gentleman who has just salaamed to you. You see by his dress that he’s a Mussulman. No self-respecting Hindu, as you’ve read in books of travel which occasionally contain a truth—will wait on you at table. Observe his nether garments how they differ from the bearer’s. The B. you see wears a dhoty.”

“A kind of twisted sheet,” remarked Helen.

“Precisely. And this man a regular divided skirt. The thing he wears on his head is not a dinner plate covered with white cotton, as one naturally imagines, but another form of Mussulman millinery—I’m sure I don’t know what. But you’re never to let him appear in your presence without it. It would be rank disrespect.

“He is also an old servant,” Mr. Browne went on, “because servants do get old in the course of time if one doesn’t get rid of them, and I’ve given up trying to get rid of this one. He’s a regular old granny, as you can see from his face; he’s infuriatingly incompetent—always poking things at a man that a man doesn’t want when a man’s got a liver. But he doesn’t understand being told to go. I dismissed him every day for a week last hot weather: he didn’t allow it to interfere with him in the least—turned up behind my chair next morning as regularly as ever—chose to regard it as a pleasantry of the sahib’s. When I went to England, to get engaged to you, my dear, I told him I desired never to look upon his face again. It was the first one I saw when the ship reached the P. and O. jetty. And there was a smile on it! What could I do! And that very night he shot me in the shirt-front with a soda-water bottle. I hand him over to you, my dear—you’ll find he’ll stay.”

“I like him,” said Mrs. Browne, “and I think his conduct has been very devoted, George. And he doesn’t cheat?”

“He has no particular opportunity. Now for the cook. This is the cook, I take it. You see he wears nothing on his head but his hair, and that’s cut short. Also he wears his particular strip of muslin draped about his shoulders, toga-wise. Also he is of a different cast of countenance, broader, higher cheek-bones, more benevolent. Remotely he’s got a strain of Chinese blood in him—he’s probably Moog from Chittagong.”

“Tum bawarchi hai, eh?”^[27]

“Gee-ha!”^[28]

“Tum Moog hai?”^[29]

“Gee-ha!”

“He is, you see. Most of the cooks are, and all of them pretend to be.”

“Tum sub cheese junta, eh, bawarchi!”^[30]

“Gee-ha, hazur! Hum atcha issoup sumja—atcha si’dish sumja, atcha eepudin sumja—subcheese khana kawasti teke sumja! Chittie hai hazur.”^[31]

“He says he’s a treasure, my dear, but that’s a modest statement they all make. And he wishes to show you his chits; will you condescend to look at them?”

“What are his chits?” Helen inquired.

“His certificates from other people whose digestions he has ruined from time to time. Let’s see—‘Kali Bagh, cook’—that’s his name apparently, but you needn’t remember it, he’ll always answer to ‘Bawarchi!’—‘has been in my service eighteen months, and has generally given satisfaction. He is as clean as any I have ever had, fairly honest, and not inclined to be wasteful. He is dismissed for no fault, but because I am leaving India.’ H’m! I don’t think much of chits! This one probably ought to read, ‘He doesn’t get drunk often, but he’s lazy, unpunctual, and beats his wife. He has cooked for me eighteen months, because I have been too weak-minded to dismiss him. He now goes by force of circumstances!’ But it’s not a bad chit.”

“I don’t consider it a very good one,” said Helen. “As clean as any I have ever had!”

“That’s his profoundest recommendation, my dear! He probably does not make toast with his toes.

“People are utterly devoid of scruple about chits,” Mr. Browne went on, running over the dirty envelopes and long-folded half-sheets of letter-paper. “I’ve known men, who wouldn’t tell a lie under any other circumstances to—to save their souls, calmly sit down and write fervent recommendations of the most whopping blackguards, in the joyful moment of their deliverance, over their own names, perfectly regardless of the immorality of the thing. It’s a curious example of the way the natives’ desire to be obliging at any cost comes off on us. Now here’s a memsahib who ought to be ashamed of herself—‘Kali Bagh is a capital cook. His entrÉes are delicious, and he always sends up a joint done to perfection. His puddings are perhaps his best point, but his vegetables are quite French. I can thoroughly recommend him to anyone wanting a really first-rate chef.—Mary L. Johnson.’ Now we don’t want a chef, this man isn’t a chef, and Mary L. Johnson never had a chef. I knew the lady—she was the wife of Bob Johnson of the Jumna Bank—and they hadn’t a pice more to live on than we have! Chef—upon my word. And yet,” said young Browne thoughtfully, “I’ve had some very decent plain dinners at Bob Johnson’s.”

“But what’s the use of chits, George, if people don’t believe in them?”

“Oh, they do believe in ’em implicitly, till they find out the horrible mendacity of ’em. Then they rage about it and send the fellow off, with another excellent chit! And one would never engage a servant without chits, you know. You see how they value them—this man’s date back to ‘79. Here’s a break, two years ago.—What sahib’s cook were you two years ago, Bawarchi?” asked Mr. Browne.

“Exactly! I thought so, he paid a visit to his mulluk two years ago—that’s his own country. In other words, he got a bad chit from that sahib and was compelled to destroy it. They have always visited their mulluks under those circumstances, for the length of time corresponding to the break. But I guess he’ll do—we mustn’t expect too much. Twelve rupees.”

The cook took his chits back and salaamed. Helen looked as if she thought a great deal more might be desired in a cook, but could not bring herself to the point of discussing it in his immediate presence.

“He seems so very intelligent,” she said to herself with a qualm.

“Now then, for the mussalchi! Tum mussalchi hai, eh?”

“Gee-ha, hazur!”

The mussalchi wore a short cotton coat, a dhoty, and an expression of dejection. On his head was a mere suggestion of a turban—an abject rag. Written upon his face was a hopeless longing to become a bawarchi, which fate forbade. Once a mussalchi, the son of a mussalchi, always a mussalchi, the bearer of hot water and a dish-cloth, the receiver of orders from kitmutgars.

“Consider your mussalchi, Helen! He is engaged to wash the dishes, to keep the silver clean, and the pots and pans. His real mission is to break as many as possible, and to levy large illegal charges upon you monthly for knife-polish and mops. In addition he’ll carry the basket home from the market every morning on his head—the cook, you know, is much too swagger for that! Think he’ll do?”

“I don’t know,” said Helen in unhappy indecision. “What do you think, George?”

“Oh we’ll try him, and I suppose he’ll have to get seven rupees. This is the mallie, the gardener—this gentleman with his hair done up neatly behind.”

“Nice clean-looking man,” remarked Helen, “but oughtn’t he to wear more clothes.”

“Looks like a decent chap. No, I should say not; I never saw a mallie with more on. You see he’s a very superior person, a Brahmin in fact. He wears the sacred string, as well as his beads and his dhoty; do you see it, over his right shoulder and under his left arm. He claims to have been ‘twice born.’ They’re generally of a very respectable jat^[32] the mallies.”

“He will take care of the garden,” remarked Helen.

“As we happen to have a garden, yes. But his business is to produce flowers. You want flowers, you engage a mallie. You get flowers. This process of logic is perfectly simple to the native mind. It is nothing but justice and sweet reason. A mallie is a person who causes flowers to appear.”

“But where does he get them?”

“Oh, my dear, that is one of the secrets of his profession. But I understand that there’s a very wise and liberal understanding amongst mallies—and quite a number of mallies have gardens attached to them. There’s a very old story about a mallie’s chit which you haven’t heard yet. His departing master gave him an excellent character and summed up by saying: ‘This mallie has been with me fifteen years. I have had no garden, I have never lacked flowers, and he has never had a conviction.’”

“George—do you mean to say they steal!”

“Oh, no, my dear! It’s a matter of arrangement. This man could never take flowers out of another sahib’s garden without consulting the other sahib’s mallie—that would be very wrong. But we’ll see if he can’t grow us some for ourselves.”

“But the other sahib.”

“The other sahib is similarly obliged from somebody else’s garden, and doesn’t know anything about it. Eight rupees for the mallie.”

Helen put it down with inquietude of spirit.

“Now for the syce, who looks after the pony. I’ve had the syce two or three years, too. He’s a very good servant now, but he used to give me a lot of trouble by pure laziness. Once he let a pony of mine get a sore back, and never told me, and I licked him. I licked him well, and I consider that licking made a man of him. He realized gradually—he’s a stupid chap—that it was undesirable to be licked, especially in the compound with the other servants looking on, and instead of throwing up his place and bringing me before the magistrate for assault, he concluded that he wouldn’t let it happen again. It never has, and he has respected himself and me more ever since.”

“Do you often ‘lick’ them, George?”

“Except this once I never have. Neither does anybody else, except a few ill-conditioned young cubs, who haven’t been out long enough to understand the native and think they can kick him about to advantage. But decent servants never stay with such men. Indeed they can’t get ’em. You’ve got to have a good character to get good servants, and there isn’t a sahib in Calcutta that hasn’t a reputation in the bazar. The bearer knows perfectly well I wouldn’t touch a hair of his head, and if the bearer went out with cholera to-morrow I could get half a dozen as good in his place. On the other hand, probably all the kitmutgar-lok despise me for keeping such a poor servant as the Kit, and I’d have a difficulty in getting a better one.”

“Curious!” said Helen.

“Yes. The syce, my dear, will desire you to pay for quite twice as much grain and grass as the pony consumes, and for a time you will do it. Bye-and-bye you will acquire the wisdom of a serpent and cut him accordingly. In the meantime he’s bound to have as much sugar-cane on hand as you want to feed the pony with, at a fixed charge of four annas a month. Don’t forget that the syce’s tulub is eight rupees.

“This very smug and smiling person is the dhoby, the washerwoman. He is an unmitigated rascal. There is no palliation for anything he does. He carries off your dirty linen every week in a very big pack on a very little donkey, and brings it home on the same, beating the donkey all the way there and all the way back. He mismatches your garments with other people’s, he washes them with country soap that smells to heaven if you don’t watch him. His custom in cleaning them is to beat them violently between two large and jagged stones. He combines all the vices of his profession upon the civilized globe; but I’m afraid you’ll have to find out for yourself, dear. Put down the dhoby at ten.

“This excessively modest person is the bheesty, who brings us water every day in a goat-skin. He isn’t used to polite society, but he’s a very worthy and hard-working sort. He’s only a ticca-bheesty. I fancy several people about here use him. You see his sole business in life is carrying water about in goat-skins. So we only give him three rupees.

“The sweeper is out on the veranda. Very properly he doesn’t venture into our presence. He is of very low caste—does the sweeping and all the menial work, you know. You are never to see or speak to him, or you’ll be lowered in the respect of the compound. The sweeper is a very poor sort of person—he is the only servant in the place that will eat the remains of our food. He gets six rupees.”

“Is that all?” asked Helen. “I’m sure I don’t know them apart.”

“That’s all, except your ayah, who isn’t here, and a durwan to keep the door, whom we’ll get when we’re richer, and a dhurzie to mend our clothes, whom we’ll get when they begin to wear out. May they be dismissed now?”

“Oh, yes, please!” said Helen, and “Bahut atcha? Tum jane sucta,”^[33] remarked her husband, whereat they salaamed and departed in single file.

“But George,” said Helen, “they come, with my ayah at eleven, to eighty-five rupees a month! Almost seven pounds! I thought servants were cheap in India!”

“No, dear, they’re not; at least, not in Calcutta. And these are the very least we can have to be at all comfortable.”

The two Brownes looked at each other with a slight shade of domestic anxiety. This was dispelled by the foolish old consideration of how little anything really mattered, now that they were one Browne, and presently they were disporting themselves behind the pony on the Maidan, leaving the cares of their household to those who were most concerned in them.