Page:In Black and White - Kipling (1890).djvu/10

 the Sahib about the customs of servants or black men? Am I a fool? I have said "very good talk" upon all occasions. I have cut always smooth his wristbands with scissors, and timely warned him of the passing away of his tobacco that he might not be left smokeless upon a Sunday. More than this I have not done. The Sahib cannot go out to dinner lacking my aid. How then should he know aught that I did not tell him? Certainly Nabi Baksh is a liar.

None the less this is a book, and the Sahib wrote it, for his name is in it and it is not his washing-book. Now, such is the wisdom of the Sahib-log that, upon opening this thing, they will instantly discover the purport. Yet I would of their favour beg them to observe how correct is the order of the pages, which I have counted, from the first to the last. Thus, One is followed by Two and Two by Three, and so forward to the end of the book. Even as I picked the pages one by one with great trouble from the floor, when the Sahib had gone to bed, so have they been placed: and there is not a fault in the whole account. And this is my work. It was a great burden, but I accomplished it; and if the Sahib gains reputation by that which he has written—and God knows what he is always writing about—I, Kadir Baksh, his servant, also have a claim to honour.