his hand he could have crushed out the life of the bird, but over its
brave unconquerable spirit he had no power. And that is why he loved
it.

Far away in the past they had met. He remembered the day distinctly
and bitterly. He had been on the brink of self-destruction. Fever and
poverty and terrible loneliness had battered and beaten him flat into
the dust from which this time he had had no wish to rise. He had
walked out to the railway station at Jaipur to witness the arrival of
the tourist train from Ahmadabad. He wanted to see white men and white
women from his own country, though up to this day he had carefully
avoided them. (How he hated the English, with their cold-blooded
suspicion of all who were not island-born!) The natives surged about
the train, with brass-ware, antique articles of warfare, tiger-hunting
knives (accompanied by perennial fairy tales), skins and silks. There
were beggars, holy men, guides and fakirs.

Squatted in the dust before the door of a first-class carriage was a
solemn brown man, in turban and clout, exhibiting performing parrots.
It was Rajah's turn. He fired a cannon, turned somersaults through a
little steel-hoop, opened a tiny chest, took out a four-anna piece,
carried it to his master, and in exchange received some seed.
Thereupon he waddled resentfully back to the iron-cage, opened the
door, closed it behind him, and began to mutter belligerently.
Warrington haggled for two straight hours. When he returned to his
sordid evil-smelling lodgings that night, he possessed the parrot and
four rupees, and sat up the greater part of the night trying to make
the bird perform his tricks. The idea of suicide no longer bothered
him; trifling though it was, he had found an interest in life. And on
the morrow came the Eurasian, who trustfully loaned Warrington every