8That evening Flory told Ko S’la to send for the barber – he was the only barber in the town, an Indian, and he made a living by shaving the Indian coolies at the rate of eight annas a month for a dry shave every other day. The Europeans patronized him for lack of any other. The barber was waiting on the veranda when Flory came back from tennis, and Flory sterilized the scissors with boiling water and Condy’s fluid and had his hair cut.
‘Lay out my best Palm Beach suit,’ he told Ko S’la, ‘and a silk shirt and my sambhur-skin shoes. Also that new tie that came from Rangoon last week.’
‘I have done so, thakin,’ said Ko S’la, meaning that he would do so. When Flory came into the bedroom he found Ko S’la waiting beside the clothes he had laid out, with a faintly sulky air. It was immediately
