The yellow robe was smoking a pipe.
Moreover he was Sadler.
The woman stared at me and scuttled away, and I says, "How's
business? How's the dyspeptic soul?"
"Business good," he says. "Dyspeptic's took a pill. Sit down, Tommy.
Glad to see you." Those were his remarks, and it didn't look as if
the East had swallowed him, except that he was remarkable calm, and
his head was shaved, and his clothes didn't seem proper on a white man.
Then bit by bit, he unloaded his mind, which appeared full of little
things, like a junk shop. He says: "See that woman that left?" he
says. "She has four children, all girls, and she's mad over it.
Around here, when a woman's going to have a child, she generally puts
in a bid at the temple for a boy. Queer, ain't it! Well, that one has
had four girls. Every time she comes around afterwards and lays down
the law. Sometimes she brings her man, and they both lay down the
law. Well, it's lively! That one on the left," he says, pointing to
the children, "that's Nan, proper name Ananda. She's one of their
four. She's got the nerve of a horsefly! The chunky one in the
middle, his name's Sokai, but I call him Soaker for short.
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