"Allen, Grant - Miss Cayley's Adventures 09 - The Adenture of the Magnificent Maharajah" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen Grant)

friends of his were arriving by the Jumna,
why, I made haste to run down to Bombay to greet
them.'

The episode was one of those topsy-turvy mixtures
of all places and ages which only this jumbled
century of ours has witnessed; it impressed me
deeply. Here was this Indian prince, a feudal
Rajput chief, living practically among his vassals
in the Middle Ages when at home in India; yet he
said 'I am a Merton man,' as Harold himself might
have said it; and he talked about cricket as
naturally as Lord Southminster talked about the
noble quadruped. The oddest part of it all was, we
alone felt the incongruity; to the Maharajah, the
change from Moozuffernuggar to Oxford and from
Oxford back again to Moozuffernuggar seemed
perfectly natural. They were but two alternative
phases in a modern Indian gentleman's education and
experience.

Still, what were we to do with him? If Harold
had presented me with a white elephant I could
hardly have been more embarrassed than I was at the
apparition of this urbane and magnificent Hindoo
prince. He was young; he was handsome; he was
slim, for a rajah; he wore European costume, save
for the huge white turban with its obtrusive
diamond; and he spoke English much better than a
great many Englishmen. Yet what place could he
fill in my life and Elsie's? For once, I felt
almost angry with Harold. Why couldn't he have
allowed us to go quietly through India, two simple
unofficial journalistic pilgrims, in our native
obscurity?

His Highness of Moozuffernuggar, however, had his
own views on this question. With a courteous wave
of one dusky hand, he motioned us gracefully into
somebody else's deck chairs and then sat down on
another beside us, while the gorgeous suite stood
by in respectful silence--unctuous gentlemen in
pink-and-gold brocade--forming a court all round
us. Elsie and I, unaccustomed to be so observed,
grew conscious of our hands, our skirts, our
postures. But the Maharajah posed himself with
perfect unconcern, like one well used to the fierce
light of royalty. 'I have come,' he said, with
simple dignity, 'to superintend the preparations
for your reception.'