Secondly, the
abiding affection of Mrs. McIntosh, best of wives. Thirdly, a
monument, more enduring than brass, which I have built up in the
seven years of my degradation."
He stopped here, and crawled across the room for a drink of water.
He was very shaky and sick.
He referred several times to his "treasure"--some great possession
that he owned--but I held this to be the raving of drink. He was as
poor and as proud as he could be. His manner was not pleasant, but
he knew enough about the natives, among whom seven years of his life
had been spent, to make his acquaintance worth having. He used
actually to laugh at Strickland as an ignorant man--"ignorant West
and East"--he said. His boast was, first, that he was an Oxford Man
of rare and shining parts, which may or may not have been true--I
did not know enough to check his statements--and, secondly, that he
"had his hand on the pulse of native life"--which was a fact. As an
Oxford man, he struck me as a prig: he was always throwing his
education about. As a Mahommedan faquir--as McIntosh Jellaludin--he
was all that I wanted for my own ends.
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