XV
“Lo, the Poor Indian!”
It was all very well for Father to ask us not to make a row because the Indian Uncle was coming to talk business, but my young brother’s boots are not the only things that make a noise. We took his boots away and made him wear Dora’s bath slippers, which are soft and woolly, and hardly any soles to them; and of course we wanted to see the Uncle, so we looked over the banisters when he came, and we were as quiet as mice—but when Eliza had let him in she went straight down to the kitchen and made the most awful row you ever heard, it sounded like the Day of judgement, or all the saucepans and crockery in the house being kicked about the floor, but she told me afterwards it was only the tea-tray and one or two cups and saucers, that she had knocked over in her flurry. We heard the Uncle say, “God bless my soul!” and then he went into Father’s study and the door was shut—we didn’t see him properly at all that time.
I don’t believe the dinner was very nice. Something got burned I’m sure—for we smelt it. It was an extra smell, besides the mutton. I know that got burned. Eliza wouldn’t have any of us in the kitchen except Dora—till dinner was over. Then we got what was left of the dessert, and had it on the stairs—just round the corner where they can’t see you from the hall, unless the first landing gas is lighted. Suddenly the study door opened and the Uncle came out and went and felt in his greatcoat pocket. It was his cigar-case he wanted. We saw that afterwards. We got a much better view of him then. He didn’t look like an Indian but just like a kind of brown, big Englishman, and of course he didn’t see us, but we heard him mutter to himself—
“Shocking bad dinner! Eh!—what?” When he went back to the study he didn’t shut the door properly. That door has always been a little tiresome since the day we took the lock off to get out the pencil sharpener H. O. had shoved into the keyhole. We didn’t listen—really and truly—but the Indian Uncle has a very big voice, and Father was not going to be beaten by a poor Indian in talking or anything else—so he spoke up too, like a man, and I heard him say it was a very good business, and only wanted a little capital—and he said it as if it was an imposition he had learned, and he hated having to say it. The Uncle said, “Pooh, pooh!” to that, and then he said he was afraid that what that same business wanted was not capital but management. Then I heard my Father say, “It is not a pleasant subject: I am sorry I introduced it. Suppose we change it, sir. Let me fill your glass.” Then the poor Indian said something about vintage—and that a poor, broken-down man like he was couldn’t be too careful. And then Father said, “Well, whisky then,” and afterwards they talked about Native Races and Imperial something or other and it got very dull.
So then Oswald remembered that you must not hear what people do not intend you to hear—even if you are not listening and he said, “We ought not to stay here any longer. Perhaps they would not like us to hear—”
Alice said, “Oh, do you think it could possibly matter?” and went and shut the study door softly but quite tight. So it was no use staying there any longer, and we went to the nursery.
Then Noël said, “Now I understand. Of course my Father is making a banquet for the Indian, because he is a poor, broken-down man. We might have known that from ‘Lo, the poor Indian!’ you know.”
We all agreed with him, and we were glad to have the thing explained, because we had not understood before what Father wanted to have people to dinner for—and not let us come in.
“Poor people are very proud,” said Alice, “and I expect Father thought the Indian would be ashamed, if all of us children knew how poor he was.”
Then Dora said, “Poverty is no
