Parrot Co. | Page 2

never at
animate things, never at anything he could by mental or physical
contest overcome. He swore at the dust, at the heat, at the wind, at the

sun.
The other wayfarer, with the inherent patience of his blood, said
nothing and waited, setting down the heavy kit-bag and the
canvas-valise (his own). When the way was free again he would sling
the kit-bag and the valise over his shoulder and step back into the road.
His turban, once white, was brown with dust and sweat. His khaki
uniform was rent under the arm-pits, several buttons were gone; his
stockings were rusty black, mottled with patches of brown skin; and the
ragged canvas-shoes spurted little spirals of dust as he walked. The
British-Indian government had indulgently permitted him to proceed
about his duties as guide and carrier under the cognomen of James
Hooghly, in honor of a father whose surname need not be written here,
and in further honor of the river upon which, quite inconveniently one
early morning, he had been born. For he was Eurasian; half European,
half Indian, having his place twixt heaven and hell, which is to say,
nowhere. His father had died of a complication of bhang-drinking and
opium-eating; and as a consequence, James was full of humorless
imagination, spells of moodiness and outbursts of hilarious politics.
Every native who acquires a facility in English immediately sets out to
rescue India from the clutches of the British raj, occasionally advancing
so far as to send a bullet into some harmless individual in the Civil
Service.
James was faithful, willing and strong; and as a carrier of burdens, took
unmurmuringly his place beside the tireless bullock and the elephant.
He was a Methodist; why, no one could find lucid answer, since he ate
no beef, drank from no common cup, smoked through his fist when he
enjoyed a pipe, and never assisted Warrington Sahib in his deadly
pursuit of flies and mosquitoes. He was Hindu in all his acts save in his
manner of entering temples; in this, the European blood kept his knees
unbended. By dint of inquiry his master had learned that James looked
upon his baptism and conversion in Methodism as a corporal would
have looked upon the acquisition of a V. C. Twice, during fever and
plague, he had saved his master's life. With the guilelessness of the
Oriental he considered himself responsible for his master in all future
times. Instead of paying off a debt he had acquired one. Treated as he

was, kindly but always firmly, he would have surrendered his life
cheerfully at the beck of the white man.
Warrington was an American. He was also one of those men who never
held misfortune in contempt, whose outlook wherever it roamed was
tolerant. He had patience for the weak, resolution for the strong, and a
fearless amiability toward all. He was like the St. Bernard dog, very
difficult to arouse. It is rather the way with all men who are strong
mentally and physically. He was tall and broad and deep. Under the
battered pith-helmet his face was as dark as the Eurasian's; but the eyes
were blue, bright and small-pupiled, as they are with men who live
out-of-doors, who are compelled of necessity to note things moving in
the distances. The nose was large and well-defined. All framed in a
tangle of blond beard and mustache which, if anything, added to the
general manliness of his appearance. He, too, wore khaki, but with the
addition of tan riding-leggings, which had seen anything but
rocking-horse service. The man was yellow from the top of his helmet
to the soles of his shoes--outside. For the rest, he was a mystery, to
James, to all who thought they knew him, and most of all to himself. A
pariah, an outcast, a fugitive from the bloodless hand of the law; a
gentleman born, once upon a time a clubman, college-bred; a
contradiction, a puzzle for which there was not any solution, not even
in the hidden corners of the man's heart. His name wasn't Warrington;
and he had rubbed elbows with the dregs of humanity, and still looked
you straight in the eye because he had come through inferno without
bringing any of the defiling pitch.
From time to time he paused to relight his crumbling cheroot. The
tobacco was strong and bitter, and stung his parched lips; but the
craving for the tang of the smoke on his tongue was not to be denied.
Under his arm he carried a small iron-cage, patterned something like a
rat-trap. It contained a Rajputana parrakeet, not much larger than a
robin, but possessor of a soul as fierce as that of Palladia, minus,
however, the smoothing influence of chivalry. He had been born under
the eaves