“Didn’t friends and family-members skeddaddle and bunk when they saw rat after I told them all that!  But I didn’t care, I had had plague once, and one cannot get it twice.  Not one man in thousand recovers when he has got it, but I did.  Old uneducated fool maternal parent did lots of thanks-givings and poojah because gods specially attentive to me—­but I said ‘Go to, old woman.  It was written on forehead.’

“And when I returned to work, one day I had an idea—­an idea of how to punish Mr. Spensonly for propelling honoured parent head first out of job, and idea for striking blow at British prestige.  We had our office in private bungalow in those days before new Secretariat was built, and it was unhealthy bungalow in which no one would live because they died.

“Mr. Spensonly didn’t care, and he had office on top floor, but bottom floor was clerks’ office who went away at night also.  Now it was my painful duty to go every morning up to his office-room and see that peon had put fresh ink and everything ready and that the hamal had dusted properly.  So it was not long before I was aware that all the drawers were locked except the top right-hand drawer, and that was not used as there was a biggish hole in the front of it where the edge was broken away from the above, some miscreant having once forced it open with tool.

“And verily it came to pass that one day, entering my humble abode-room, I saw a plague-rat lying suffering from in extremis and about to give up ghost.  But having had plague I did not trouble about the fleas that would leave his body when it grew stiff and cold, in search of food.  Instead I let it lie there while my food was being prepared, and regretted that it was not beneath the chair of some enemy of mine who had not had plague, instead of beneath my own ... that of Mr. Spensonly for example!...

“It was Saturday night.  I returned to the office that evening, knowing that Mr. Spensonly was out; and I went to his office-room with idle excuse to the peon sitting in verandah—­and in my pocket was poor old rat kicking bucket fast.

“Who was to say I put deceasing rat in the Sahib’s table-drawer just where he would come and sit all day—­being in the habit of doing work on Sunday the Christian holy day (being a man of no religion or caste)?  What do I know of rats and their properties when at death’s front door?

“Cannot rat go into a Sahib’s drawer as well as into poor man’s?  If he did no work on Sunday very likely the fleas would remain until Monday, the rat dying slowly and remaining warm and not in rigour mortuis.  Anyhow when they began to seek fresh fields and pastures new, being fed up with old rat—­or rather not able to get fed up enough, they would be jolly well on the look out, and glad enough to take nibble even at an Englishman! (He!  He!) So I argued, and put good old rat in drawer and did slopes.  On Monday, Mr. Spensonly went early from office, feeling feverish; and when I called, as in duty bound, to make humble inquiries on Tuesday, he was reported jolly sickish with Plague—­and he died Tuesday night.  I never heard of any other Sahib dying of Plague in Gungapur except one missionary fellow who lived in the native city with native fellows.