To have appeared in
public with uncovered feet would have been a gross breach of propriety.
Fine old Hindoo gentlemen, all of the olden time, find it difficult to
express their mingled contempt, indignation, and regret for the
innovation which substitutes the Cheapside shoe for the ceremonial
slipper, or permits the wearing of the latter in a Sahib's office or
drawing-room. It shows, they say, that the natives are losing their
respect for the Sahibs. And yet the British authorities stupidly
sanction it, even set the seal of fashion upon it, by allowing natives
of rank, who visit Government House, to appear in the presence of the
Governor-General, and the _elite_ of the European society, in their
slippers. The fact is, these impious disturbings of the established
order of things are most shocking to the well-regulated heathen mind, to
which no spectacle can be more monstrous than that of a Hindoo of good
caste and old family performing with some arf-and-arf Cockney visitor a
duet on the pump-handle, and directly afterward wreathing his apoplectic
neck with flowers, and sprinkling his asthmatic waistcoat with
rose-water. You see they both back "Young Bengal" in the Barrackpore
races.
When Karlee visits his friend the sircar, he is scrupulous not to make
his parting salaam until his host has given the customary signal.
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