Page:On the Coromandel Coast.djvu/68

 'Who is there?' he was to reply :

'The boy, my lord!'

The following morning the butler carried out his orders to the letter, arriving with the tea-tray at the bishop's door to the minute, and knocking as directed before entering. To the query ' Who is there ? ' the butler in his agitation at having to speak to so great a personage in an unaccustomed tongue, replied :

'The lord, my boy.'

It is more than a quarter of a century since it was told to us. Doubtless it is still doing duty in the diocese with Bishop Whitehead. Thanks to the rules of super-annuation the chestnut in India is endowed with a remarkable vitality and lives to embellish a succession of heroes without fear of detection. The old Anglo-Indian with a long memory who might say: 'I heard that same tale told of old So-and-so thirty years ago,' is safely planted in some suburban villa at home and has no power to blast the verdancy of the story and spoil the fun.

At another house up-country the bishop was to dine. The same difficulty existed with the servants over the English language and the butler needed drilling. In those early days it was the fashion on the arrival of dinner guests to offer them a glass of sherry. The butler had been instructed to bring the usual decanters of dark and light sherry and to offer a glass to the bishop with the sentence :

'My lord, will you have dark or light sherry ? '

The bishop arrived and the butler approached with the two decanters in his hand, a second servant bore the tray containing the glasses. His lordship was fairly electrified by hearing the startling words addressed to him :

'My God, will you have thick or clear?'

In justice to the butler it is only right to say that the word 'Swami,' the Tamil term for God, Lord or Chief, is commonly used by an inferior towards a superior, and in