red. He brought his fist down on
the table.

"I tell you my father,--ah! but never mind my father." His voice
failed him.

"Certainly," I replied. "Only get on with your story."

"I came out to India from Boston as a young man," he continued,
"either in '66 or '68, I forget which."

"Try '67," I suggested.

"It was not '67," he exclaimed angrily, "it was either '66 or '68."

"Or some other date. However, that's but a detail. Proceed."

"Sir, you can make sport of me, but what I am telling you is God's
truth. May I be struck dead if one lie passes my lips. I came out to
plant coffee; I thought, like many others, that I had only to cut down
the jungle and put in coffee plants, and make my everlasting fortune."

"And didn't you?" I asked, glancing at his dilapidated old helmet
that hung over the corner of the sideboard.

"Look at me!" he burst forth, springing upon his feet, his breast
heaving under his blue pajamas.

"Pardon the question," I answered. "Go on, you are doing bravely."

He sank back into his chair with a commendable air of dignity.

"I had a little money of my own," he continued, "and opened up an
estate. It promised well, but I soon came to the end of my small
capital. I thought I could go to Calcutta and Bombay and Simla,
and cultivate my mind by travel and society, while the bushes were
growing. Well it ended in the same old way. I got into the chitties'
hands--they are worse than Jews--at two per cent a month on a mortgage
on my estate. Then I went back to it with a determination to pay up
my debt, make my estate a success, and after that to see the world.
I worked, sir, like a nigger, and for a time was able to meet my naked
creditor, from month to month, hoping all the time against hope for
a bumper crop."

"I understand," I said. "Your bumper crop did not come, and your
chitty did. Where does she come in?" I nodded in the direction of
the little sleeper.

He glanced uneasily in the same direction, and a tear gathered in
his eye.

"I married on credit, sir, the daughter of an English army officer. It
was infernal. But, sir, you would have done likewise. Live under the
burning sun of India for four years, struggle against impossibilities
and hope against hope, and then have a pair of great hazel eyes look
lovingly into yours and a pair of red lips turned up to yours,--and
tell me if you would not have closed your eyes to the future, and
accepted this precious gift as though it were s