This was
wrong. The wife should always wait until the husband has eaten.
McIntosh Jellaludin apologized, saying:--
"It is an English prejudice which I have not been able to overcome;
and she loves me. Why, I have never been able to understand. I
fore-gathered with her at Jullundur, three years ago, and she has
remained with me ever since. I believe her to be moral, and know
her to be skilled in cookery."
He patted the woman's head as he spoke, and she cooed softly. She
was not pretty to look at.
McIntosh never told me what position he had held before his fall.
He was, when sober, a scholar and a gentleman. When drunk, he was
rather more of the first than the second. He used to get drunk
about once a week for two days. On those occasions the native woman
tended him while he raved in all tongues except his own. One day,
indeed, he began reciting Atalanta in Calydon, and went through it
to the end, beating time to the swing of the verse with a bedstead-
leg. But he did most of his ravings in Greek or German. The man's
mind was a perfect rag-bag of useless things.
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