He took the pipe out of his mouth,
and went on judicially:--"All things considered, I doubt whether you
are the luckier. I do not refer to your extremely limited classical
attainments, or your excruciating quantities, but to your gross
ignorance of matters more immediately under your notice. That for
instance."--He pointed to a woman cleaning a samovar near the well
in the centre of the Serai. She was flicking the water out of the
spout in regular cadenced jerks.
"There are ways and ways of cleaning samovars. If you knew why she
was doing her work in that particular fashion, you would know what
the Spanish Monk meant when he said--
'I the Trinity illustrate,
Drinking watered orange-pulp--
In three sips the Aryan frustrate,
While he drains his at one gulp.--'
and many other things which now are hidden from your eyes. However,
Mrs. McIntosh has prepared dinner. Let us come and eat after the
fashion of the people of the country--of whom, by the way, you know
nothing."
The native woman dipped her hand in the dish with us.
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