The sircar,
having thriven under the patronage of more than one rich and liberal
_baboo_,[13] to whose favor he had recommended himself by his business
alertness and his ever-politic compliance, had attained unto the honor
of a brick house of two stories, plastered and whitewashed without and
within, with a flat roof, having a low parapet, and laid with a
rain-proof composition of clay and lime. Though his stairs are narrow,
his veranda is commodious; and when he shall have made his fortune in
the curiosity and general fancy line, he will have wings, with a
central area open to the sky, and a double veranda with a lattice. Then,
his accommodations being sufficiently enlarged, the proudest wish of his
heart shall be gratified in the reunion of his entire family--children
and grandchildren, even uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces--under the
same roof.
As I drove up to Karlee's hedge, and, tossing the reins to my
_syce_,[14] passed under the tamarind-trees to the little porch, the old
man came out to meet me with unwonted precipitation; and, although he
maintained with admirable presence of mind that imperturbable gravity,
that tranquil, expectant self-possession, which is the study of a
Hindoo's life, and to which he gives all his mind from the time when he
first begins to have any, ever solicitous to be master of himself though
China fall, it was not difficult on this occasion to detect in the
fluttering lights and shades of his countenance an expression mixed of
astonishment, gratification, and confusion, very natural to a poor
bhearer who had never before been taken by a Sahib in the very bosom of
his family.
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