"
"A native?" said Pagett.
"Of course," was the reply, "Bishen Siagh is his name, and he has
two brothers to help him. When there is an important job to do,
the three go 'ato partnership, but they spend most of their time and
all their money in litigation over an inheritance, and I'm afraid they
are getting involved, Thoroughbred Sikhs of the old rock,
obstinate, touchy, bigoted, and cunning, but good men for all that.
Here is Bishen
Singn -shall we ask him about the Congress?"
But Bishen Singh, who approached with a respectful salaam, had
never heard of it, and he listened with a puzzled face and
obviously feigned interest to Orde's account of its aims and
objects, finally shaking his vast white turban with great
significance when he learned that it was promoted by certam
pleaders named by Orde, and by educated natives. He began with
labored respect to explain how he was a poor man with no concern
in such matters, which were all under the control of God, but
presently broke out of Urdu into familiar Punjabi, the mere sound
of which had a rustic smack of village smoke-reek and plough-tail,
as he denounced the wearers of white coats, the jugglers with
words who filched his field from him, the men whose backs were
never bowed in honest work; and poured ironical scorn on the
Bengali. He and one of his brothers had seen Calcutta, and being
at work there had Bengali carpenters given to them as assistants.
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