Page:The Mating of the Blades.djvu/25

 born! I have the welfare of Tamerlanistan at heart …”

“Aughrr!” grunted Ayesha Zemzem, after the manner of an indignant camel. “I know, O baseborn! At seventeen per cent compound interest a minute, and a mortgage on the cow and the unborn calf!”

“No—no—by the Holy Trimurti!” stammered Babu Chandra. “I am a friend of this land—a friend of the Gengizkhani!”

“Right!” came the cutting rejoinder, “and it has indeed been said that he who has a Babu for a friend needs no enemy. Leave this room. We like not thy fat and indecent face.”

“But—” said the Babu.

“But—what, fat toad?”

“I came here on business!”

“Business? Dost thou want to buy or to sell?”

“Neither the one nor the other. I want to—give!”

For the first time, the princess opened her mouth.

“Give?” she asked, with a flash of even white teeth and a glint of merriment in her black eyes. “Who ever heard of a Bengali giving aught except false measure?”

“Rightly spoken!” chimed in the nurse. “Can a Babu be generous? Can a frog catch cold?”

But, nowise daunted by the avalanche of contumacious metaphors, Chandra continued that he had friends, rich and generous sahebs, who were anxious to pour gold into the land as one pours melted butter on rice.

“Millions and millions of golden tomans will they give to thee, O Aziza Nurmahal. They will irrigate