That was the beginning of my acquaintance with
McIntosh Jellaludin. When a loafer, and drunk, sings The Song of the Bower, he
must be worth cultivating. He got off the camel's back and said, rather
thickly:--"I--I--I'm a bit screwed, but a dip in Loggerhead will put me right
again; and I say, have you spoken to Symonds about the mare's knees?"
Now Loggerhead was six thousand weary miles away from us, close to Mesopotamia,
where you mustn't fish and poaching is impossible, and Charley Symonds' stable
a half mile further across the paddocks. It was strange to hear all the old
names, on a May night, among the horses and camels of the Sultan Caravanserai.
Then the man seemed to remember himself and sober down at the same time. He
leaned against the camel and pointed to a corner of the Serai where a lamp was
burning:--
"I live there," said he, "and I should be extremely obliged if you would be
good enough to help my mutinous feet thither; for I am more than usually drunk-
-most--most phenomenally tight. But not in respect to my head. 'My brain cries
out against'--how does it go? But my head rides on the--rolls on the dung-hill
I should have said, and controls the qualm."
I helped him through the gangs of tethered horses and he collapsed on the edge
of the verandah in front of the line of native quarters.
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