I am a MAN!"
From that day dated my acquaintance with Muhammad Din. Never again did he come
into my dining-room, but on the neutral ground of the compound, we greeted each
other with much state, though our conversation was confined to "Talaam, Tahib"
from his side and "Salaam Muhammad Din" from mine. Daily on my return from
office, the little white shirt, and the fat little body used to rise from the
shade of the creeper-covered trellis where they had been hid; and daily I
checked my horse here, that my salutation might not be slurred over or given
unseemly.
Muhammad Din never had any companions. He used to trot about the compound, in
and out of the castor-oil bushes, on mysterious errands of his own. One day I
stumbled upon some of his handiwork far down the ground. He had half buried the
polo-ball in dust, and stuck six shrivelled old marigold flowers in a circle
round it. Outside that circle again, was a rude square, traced out in bits of
red brick alternating with fragments of broken china; the whole bounded by a
little bank of dust. The bhistie from the well-curb put in a plea for the small
architect, saying that it was only the play of a baby and did not much
disfigure my garden.
Heaven knows that I had no intention of touching the child's work then or
later; but, that evening, a stroll through the garden brought me unawares full
on it; so that I trampled, before I knew, marigold-heads, dust-bank, and
fragments of broken soap-dish into confusion past all hope of mending.
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