"
At the outset of acquaintance McIntosh warned me. "Remember this. I am not an
object for charity. I require neither your money, your food, nor your cast-off
raiment. I am that rare animal, a self-supporting drunkard. If you choose, I
will smoke with you, for the tobacco of the bazars does not, I admit, suit my
palate; and I will borrow any books which you may not specially value. It is
more than likely that I shall sell them for bottles of excessively filthy
country-liquors. In return, you shall share such hospitality as my house
affords. Here is a charpoy on which two can sit, and it is possible that there
may, from time to time, be food in that platter. Drink, unfortunately, you will
find on the premises at any hour: and thus I make you welcome to all my poor
establishments."
I was admitted to the McIntosh household--I and my good tobacco.
But nothing else. Unluckily, one cannot visit a loafer in the Serai by day.
Friends buying horses would not understand it.
Consequently, I was obliged to see McIntosh after dark. He laughed at this, and
said simply:--"You are perfectly right. When I enjoyed a position in society,
rather higher than yours, I should have done exactly the same thing, Good
Heavens! I was once"--he spoke as though he had fallen from the Command of a
Regiment--"an Oxford Man!" This accounted for the reference to Charley Symonds'
stable.
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