But to return to Sam. The poor fellow was wandering about the streets of Beypore coinless and curry-and-rice-less, when he stumbled upon me. He was seeking, he told me, from some good Samaritan of an officer, a free convoy to Madras as his servant; and as I happened to be in a position entitled to passes for some three or four followers at government expense, I was enabled to pour oil and wine into Sam’s wounds, and without even the disbursement to mine host the assistant-quartermaster-general, of the traditional ‘tuppence,’ to get him across from terminus to terminus—some four hundred long miles—and without once casting eyes on him. But at Lucifer’s hotel in Madras where I stayed—— What a memory of mosquitoes, fleas, and other nimble insects doth it bring! What a night-band of croaking frogs and howling jackals it kept! What packs of prowling pariah dogs and daringly thieving crows congregated about its yards and outhouses! What repulsive nude mendicants and fakeers strolled almost into its very verandahs! What a staff of lazy sweepers, slow-footed ‘boys,’ and sleepy punkah-pullers crawled about it generally! And last, though not least, what a wretched ‘coolie-cook’ superintended its flesh-pots, from which not even the every-day stereotyped prawn curry, boiled seer-fish, and grilled _morghee_ (fowl) could creditably and palatably issue. At this Stygian caravanserai then, Sam, whom I thought I had bid adieu to for ever and a day on the railway platform, turns up again clean and smirk, salaams, asks for permanent employment, produces a thick packet of highly laudatory characters (mostly, I had no doubt, either fabricated by a native scribe in the Thieves’ Bazaar at Black Town, or borrowed for the occasion from some other brother-butler), gets engaged; and from that moment, both figuratively and literally, begins to eat my salt. Nor did the saline feasting fail to give him a taste for liquor—for alcoholic, decidedly alcoholic were Sam’s proclivities. He drank at all times and in all places; but his favourite day and locality was Tuesday, at the weekly market of the cantonment. Then and there he imbibed right royally, and staggering home—the coolies with the supplies following him as tipsy as himself—went straight to his mat-spread _charpoy_ (bedstead).