secreted there. He nodded to me brightly, and then for the first
time it occurred to me that if he came from his nameplace he might know
a little French. I knew remarkably little myself; I could read it with
difficulty. My colloquial French was then, as now, intensely and
intolerably English. I said, "_Bon jour_, Pondicherry!"

The result was astounding. He turned to me with an awe-stricken look, as
he dropped his tin plate with its precious burden, and holding out both
hands as though to embrace a fellow countryman, he exclaimed in
French,--

"What--what, do _you_ come from Pondicherry?"

For a moment or two I did not follow his meaning. I did not see what
French meant to him; I could not tell that it represented his little
fatherland. I had imagined he knew it was a foreign tongue. But it was
not foreign to him.

"No," I said, "I am an Englishman."

He sat down on a thwart and stared at me as if I was some strange
miracle. His next words let me into the heart of his mystery.

"It is _not_ possible. You _speak_ Pondicherry!"

He did not even know that he was speaking French, the language of a
great Western nation. He could not know that I was doing my feeble best
to speak the language of a great literature; the language of Voltaire,
of Victor Hugo, of diplomacy. No, he and I were speaking Pondicherry,
the language of a derelict corner of mighty Hindustan. Now he eyed me
with suspicion.

"When were you there?" he demanded in a whisper.

If I was not Pondicherry born I must at least have lived there in order
to have learnt the language.

"Pondy, I was never there," I answered.

He evidently did not believe me. I had some mysterious reason for
concealing that I was either Pondicherry born or that I had resided
there.

"Then you didn't know it?"

"No."

"And you have not been in Villianur?"

"No."

"Or Bahur?"

I shook my head. He shook his and stared at me suspiciously. Perhaps I
had committed some crime there.

"Then how did you learn it?"

"I learnt it in England."

That I was undoubtedly speaking the unhappy truth would have been
obvious to any Frenchman. But to Pondicherry what I said was so
obviously a gross and almost foolish piece of fiction that he shook his
head disdainfully. And yet why should I lie? He spoke so rapidly that I
could not follow him.

"If you speak so fast I cannot understand," I said.

"Ah, then," he replied hopefully, "it is a long time since you were
there. Perh