[Picture: The boy and man] YOUR Boy is your _valet de chambre_, your
butler, your tailor, your steward and general agent, your interpreter, or
oriental translator and your treasurer. On assuming charge of his duties
he takes steps first, in an unobtrusive way, to ascertain the amount of
your income, both that he may know the measure of his dignity, and also
that he may be able to form an estimate of what you ought to spend. This
is a matter with which he feels he is officially concerned. Indeed, the
arrangement which accords best with his own view of his position and
responsibilities is that, as you draw your salary each month, you should
make it over to him in full. Under this arrangement he has a tendency to
grow rich, and, as a consequence, portly in his figure and consequential
in his bearing, in return for which he will manage all your affairs
without allowing you to be worried by the cares of life, supply all your
wants, keep you in pocket money, and maintain your dignity on all
occasions. If you have not a large enough soul to consent to this
arrangement, he is not discouraged. He will still be your treasurer,
meeting all your petty liabilities out of his own funds and coming to
your aid when you find yourself without change. As far as my
observations go, this is an infallible mark of a really respectable Boy,
that he is never without money. At the end of the month he presents you
a faithful account of his expenditure, the purport of which is plainly
this, that since you did not hand over your salary to him at the
beginning of the month, you are to do so now. Q.E.F. There is a mystery
about these accounts which I have never been able to solve. The total is
always, on the face of it, monstrous and not to be endured; but when you
call your Boy up and prepare to discharge the bombshell of your
indignation, he merely inquires in an unagitated tone of voice which item
you find fault with, and you become painfully aware that you have not a
leg to stand on. In the first place, most of the items are too minute to
allow of much retrenchment. You can scarcely make sweeping reductions on
such charges as:—“Butons for master’s trouser, 9 pies;” “Tramwei for
going to market, 1 anna 6 pies;” “Grain to sparrow” (canary seed!) “1
anna 3 pies;” “Making white to master’s hat, 5 pies.” And when at last
you find a charge big enough to lay hold of, the imperturbable man
proceeds to explain how, in the case of that particular item, he was
able, by the exercise of a little forethought, to save you 2 annas and 3
pies. I have struggled against these accounts and know them. It is vain
to be indignant. You must just pay the bill, and if you do not want
another, you must make up your mind to be your own treasurer. You will
fall in your Boy’s estimation, but it does not follow that he will leave
your service. The notion that every native servant makes a principle of
saving the whole of his wages and remitting them monthly to Goa, or
Nowsaree, is one of the ancient myths of Anglo-India. I do not mean to
say that if you encourage your Boy to do this he will refuse; on the
contrary, he likes it. But the ordinary Boy, I believe, is not a prey to
ambition and, if he can find service to his mind, easily reconciles
himself to living on his wages, or, as he terms it, in the practical
spirit of oriental imagery, “eating” them. The conditions he values seem
to be,—permanence, respectful treatment, immunity from kicks and cuffs
and from abuse, especially in his own tongue, and, above all, a quiet
life, without _kitkit_, which may be vulgarly translated, nagging. He
considers his situation with regard to these conditions, he considers
also his pay and prospect of unjust emoluments, with a judicial mind he
balances the one against the other, and if he works patiently on, it is
because the balance is in his favour. I am satisfied that it is an axiom
of domestic economy in India that the treatment which you mete out to
your Boy has a definite money value. Ill-usage of him is a luxury like
any other, paid for by those who enjoy it, not to be had otherwise.
There is one other thing on which he sets his childish heart. He likes
service with a master who is in some sort a _burra saheb_. He is by
nature a hero worshipper—and master is his natural hero. The saying,
that no man is a hero to his own valet, has no application here. In
India, if you are not a hero to your own Boy, I should say, without
wishing to be unpleasant, that the probabilities are against your being a
hero to anybody. It is very difficult for us, with our notions, to enter
into the Boy’s beautiful idea of the relationship which subsists between
him and master. To get at it at all we must realize that no shade of
radicalism has ever crossed his social theory. “Liberty, Equality, and
Fraternity” is a monstrous conception, to which he would not open his
mind if he could. He sees that the world contains masters and servants,
and doubts not that the former were provided for the accommodation of the
latter. His fate having made him a servant, his master is the foundation
on which he stands. Everything, therefore, which relates to the
well-being, and especially to the reputation, of his master, is a
personal concern of his own. _Per contra_, he does not forget that he is
the ornament of his master. I had a Boy once whom I retained chiefly as
a curiosity, for I believe he had the smallest adult human head in
heathendom. He appeared before me one day with that minute organ
surmounted by a gorgeous turban of purple and gold, which he informed me
had cost about a month’s pay. Now I knew that his brain was never equal
to the management of his own affairs, so that he was always in pecuniary
straits, but he anticipated my curiosity by informing me that he had
raised the necessary funds by pawning his wife’s bangles. Unthinkingly I
reproached him, and then I saw, coming over his countenance, the bitter
expression of one who has met with rebuff when he looked for sympathy.
Arranging himself in his proudest attitude, he exclaimed, “Saheb, is it
not for your glory? When strangers see me will they not ask, ‘Whose
servant is that?”’ Living always under the influence of this spirit, the
Boy never loses an opportunity of enforcing your importance, and his own
as your representative. When you are staying with friends, he gives the
butler notice of your tastes. If tea is made for breakfast, he demands
coffee or cocoa; if jam is opened, he will try to insist upon marmalade.
At an hotel he orders special dishes. When you buy a horse or a
carriage, he discovers defects in it, and is gratified if he can persuade
you to return it and let people see that you are not to be imposed upon
or trifled with. He delights to keep creditors and mean men waiting at
the door until it shall be your pleasure to see them. But it is only
justice to say that it will be your own fault if this disposition is not
tempered with something of a purer feeling, a kind of filial regard and
even reverence—if reverence is at all possible—under the influence of
which he will take a kindly interest in your health and comfort. When
your wife is away, he seems to feel a special responsibility, and my
friend’s Boy, when warning his master against an unwholesome luxury,
would enforce his words with the gentle admonition, “Missis never
allowing, sir.”
It is this way of regarding himself and his master which makes the Boy
generally such a faithful servant; but he often has a sort of spurious
conscience, too, growing out of the fond pride with which he cherishes
his good name, so that you do not strain the truth to say that he is
strictly honest. Veracity is the point on which he is weakest, but even
in this there are exceptions. My last Boy was curiously scrupulous about
the truth, and would rarely tell a lie, even to shield himself from
blame, though he would do so to get the _hamal_ into a scrape.
I regret to say that the Boy has flaws. His memory is a miracle; but
just once in a way, when you are dining at the club, he lays out your
clothes nicely without a collar. He sends you off on an excursion to
Matheran, and packs your box in his neat way; but instead of putting one
complete sleeping suit, he puts in the upper parts of two, without the
nether and more necessary portions. It is irritating to discover, when
you are dressing in a hurry, that he has put your studs into the upper
flap of your shirt front; but I am not sure it does not try your patience
more to find out, as you brush your teeth, that he has replenished your
tooth-powder box from a bottle of Gregory’s mixture. But Dhobie day is
his opportunity. He first delivers the soiled clothes by tale, diving
into each pocket to see if you have left rupees in it; but he sends a set
of studs to be washed. Then he sits down to execute repairs. He has an
assorted packet of metal and cotton buttons beside him, from which he
takes at random. He finishes with your socks, which he skilfully darns
with white thread, and contemplates the piebald effect with much
satisfaction; after which he puts them up in little balls, each
containing a pair of different colours. Finally he will arrange all the
clean clothes in the drawer on a principle of his own, the effect of
which will find its final development in your temper when you go in haste
for a handkerchief. I suspect there is often an explanation of these
things which we do not think of. The poor Boy has other things on his
mind besides your clothes. He has a wife, or two, and children, and they
are not with him. His child sickens and dies, or his wife runs away with
someone else, and carries off all the jewellery in which he invested his
savings; but he goes about his work in silence, and we only remark that
he has been unusually stupid the last few days.
So much for the Boy in general. As for your own particular Boy, he must
be a very exceptional specimen if he has not persuaded you long since
that, though Boys in general are a rascally lot, you have been singularly
fortunate in yours.
[Picture: To Matheran!]