“Master?”

“Oh, never mind; it was only a random thought; I didn’t expect you to understand it.  How did you get your English; is it an acquirement, or just a gift of God?”

After some hesitation—­piously: 

“Yes, he very good.  Christian god very good, Hindoo god very good, too.  Two million Hindoo god, one Christian god—­make two million and one.  All mine; two million and one god.  I got a plenty.  Sometime I pray all time at those, keep it up, go all time every day; give something at shrine, all good for me, make me better man; good for me, good for my family, dam good.”

Then he had another inspiration, and went rambling off into fervent confusions and incoherencies, and I had to stop him again.  I thought we had talked enough, so I told him to go to the bathroom and clean it up and remove the slops—­this to get rid of him.  He went away, seeming to understand, and got out some of my clothes and began to brush them.  I repeated my desire several times, simplifying and re-simplifying it, and at last he got the idea.  Then he went away and put a coolie at the work, and explained that he would lose caste if he did it himself; it would be pollution, by the law of his caste, and it would cost him a deal of fuss and trouble to purify himself and accomplish his rehabilitation.  He said that that kind of work was strictly forbidden to persons of caste, and as strictly restricted to the very bottom layer of Hindoo society—­the despised ‘Sudra’ (the toiler, the laborer).  He was right; and apparently the poor Sudra has been content with his strange lot, his insulting distinction, for ages and ages—­clear back to the beginning of things, so to speak.  Buckle says that his name—­laborer—­is a term of contempt; that it is ordained by the Institutes of Menu (900 B.C.) that if a Sudra sit on a level with his superior he shall be exiled or branded—­[Without going into particulars I will remark that as a rule they wear no clothing that would conceal the brand.—­M.  T.]. . . ; if he speak contemptuously of his superior or insult him he shall suffer death; if he listen to the reading of the sacred books he shall have burning oil poured in his ears; if he memorize passages from them he shall be killed; if he marry his daughter to a Brahmin the husband shall go to hell for defiling himself by contact with a woman so infinitely his inferior; and that it is forbidden to a Sudra to acquire wealth.  “The bulk of the population of India,” says Bucklet—­[Population to-day, 300,000,000.] —­“is the Sudras—­the workers, the farmers, the creators of wealth.”