Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/230

214 made mowrá to Colonel Buttercup, Cantonment Magistrate. The Colonel and his wife, Mrs. Millicent Buttercup, were at dinner with Collector Jalap, when Jamál Gota approached " the presence," sáláming repeatedly, with something like a bottle wrapped in a clean white napkin. Making his best bow to the company, Jamál unwrapped the bottle and placed it on the table; then folding his arms, as the Parsi does before his Keblá, orated to this effect:—"Námdár Sirkar Sáhib, it is our custom to lay before such feet as yours (Buttercup had left his feet on the field of Assaye) the first-fruits of the season. Hence the trouble, Lord Sáhib, for which your pardon, General Sáhib!" Buttercup, who neither relished the allusion to his absent feet nor the bottle in the presence of the strict Jálap, affected to be thunderstruck. After a gasp or two, he found coherent articulation enough to ask, "Are you mad, Parsi? Who are you?" Jámal Gota, who had come prepared, hereupon fell to the ground, sobbing as if his heart would break, and whining "Oh, Sáhib, you are my mábáp. Is it not the duty of a son to keep his mábáp Khush?