526 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVIII, 
P. fascicularis struck me as being a particularly obnoxious little brute, as while 
possessing all the habits and customs of that ungentlemanly animal the 
Bengal Monkey its defects are enhanced by an expression of the most abject 
misery. 
il 
“THe INTERPRETER. ”’ 
One mail day shortly after my arrival, when I was in the throes of writing 
letters against time, a rasping cough distracted my attention from the business in 
hand. Knowing that the average Indian is as good at waiting as he is at coughing 
I decided to carry on with my correspondence till it suited me to enquire into 
the business of my cough-racked friend outside. I soon found however that to 
write coherently with a cough such as his ringing in my ears was impossible, 
so I shouted in Hindustani and asked who the cougher was and _ what his busi- 
ness to which I got the intelligent reply ‘‘ Hum hai huzoor.” 
In order to get quit of him quickly I called him in and after a very polite 
salaam was handed a letter. This was from L.’s clerk and read as follows :— 
To—HonovuRreEpD Sir, 
The bearer Yussuf Khan is an interpreter and has been employed as such for 
some years by the Survey of India parties when working in this vicinity, He 
is willing to accept Rs. 35 per mensem as a starting salary. You will find him 
honest and hard working. He is not of menial class being by trade a motor 
mechanic—I am, etc. 
Having read this I had a look at the man and was instantly convinced of the 
truth of the statement in the letter anent the class to which he did not belong 
and wondered at his condescension in accepting Rs. 35 even as a starting salary, 
and I wondered if Solomon in all his glory was ever arrayed like Yussuf Khan. 
He was clothed in a spotless twill shirt, crushed strawberry coloured silk loongy 
and ‘‘ Saxone ”’ boots with mauve socks. His hair shone like the raven’s wing 
and from the way it waved I wondered if he used Anzora. In fact he looked as 
though he had attained the “‘ complete Swaraj”’ pictured by Mr. Gandhi and 
promised by him in most months of the year. 
After scrutinising him for a few moments I talked to him about the job, salary, 
etc., and he agreed to start work on Rs. 35 a month, please note the “ start,”, 
and to interpret for me and help with skinning when I’d taught him this work. 
I could never however picture him sitting down to skin a very dead rat but I 
couldn’t do without an interpreter so there it was. Four days before leaving X 
to start work he asked for an advance, a mere matter of three months pay, and 
on my asking the reason stated that he wished to buy loongyis. Naw his series 
of loongyis (I can remember at least six different ones), all of the finest silk, had 
been greatly admired by me so this reason didn’t suffice and I informed him 
that as we should be leaving his lady-friends at X for sometime and going into 
the jungle,I would suggest his taking his oldest loongyi and cutting it into pieces 
24 x 9 inches of which he’d get about 6 and have a costume suited to the work 
and environments. This so insulted his sense of decency that I never saw him 
again and set sail interpreterless if I may coin a word. I have another now 
but that’s another tale. 
Til 
TRAPPING. 
A man once said these words to me and I’ve never forgotten them and pro- 
bably never shall. ‘‘ You know old chap ma brainy man andI know it 
and a man who has brains and doesn’t know it is a darned fool”. This calm 
determined statement not even containing the usual * though I say it as should 
n’t’’ prompted me to ask him what he’d call a man who was not brainy and who 
didn’t kid himself he was. He was not brainy enough to answer the question. 
