"Not in the least. How should I?"

"You yourself speak Urdu."

"Well but--" The situation hardly lent itself to such a discussion; he
had the babu first to dispose of. Amber resumed his cross-examination.
"Who are you?" he demanded. "And what is your business in this place?"

The fat yellowish-brown face was distorted by a fugitive grimace of
deprecation. "Hazoor, I am Behari Lal Chatterji, solicitor, of the
Inner Temple."

"Well? And your business here?"

"Hazoor, that is for your secret ear." The babu drew himself up,
assuming a certain dignity. "It is not meet that the message of the
Bell should be uttered in the hearing of an Englishwoman, hazoor."

"What are you drivelling about?" In his blank wonder, Amber returned to
English as to a tongue more suited to his urgent need of forcible
expression. "And, look here, you stop calling me 'Hazoor.' I'm no more
a hazoor than you are--idiot!"

"Nay," contended the babu reproachfully; "is it right that you should
seek to hoodwink me? Have I not eyes with which to see you, ears that
can hear you speak our tongue, hazoor? I am no child, to be played
with--I, the appointed Mouthpiece of the Voice!"

"I know naught of your 'Voice' or its mouthpiece; but certainly you are