Every Sunday she dressed herself wonderfully and went to see her
Mamma, who lived, for the most part, on an old cane chair in a
greasy tussur-silk dressing-gown and a big rabbit-warren of a house
full of Vezzises, Pereiras, Ribieras, Lisboas and Gansalveses, and
a floating population of loafers; besides fragments of the day's
bazar, garlic, stale incense, clothes thrown on the floor,
petticoats hung on strings for screens, old bottles, pewter
crucifixes, dried immortelles, pariah puppies, plaster images of
the Virgin, and hats without crowns. Miss Vezzis drew twenty
rupees a month for acting as nurse, and she squabbled weekly with
her Mamma as to the percentage to be given towards housekeeping.
When the quarrel was over, Michele D'Cruze used to shamble across
the low mud wall of the compound and make love to Miss Vezzis after
the fashion of the Borderline, which is hedged about with much
ceremony. Michele was a poor, sickly weed and very black; but he
had his pride. He would not be seen smoking a huqa for anything;
and he looked down on natives as only a man with seven-eighths
native blood in his veins can. The Vezzis Family had their pride
too. They traced their descent from a mythical plate-layer who had
worked on the Sone Bridge when railways were new in India, and they
valued their English origin. Michele was a Telegraph Signaller on
Rs. 35 a month. The fact that he was in Government employ made
Mrs. Vezzis lenient to the shortcomings of his ancestors.

There was a compromising legend--Dom Anna the tailor brought it
from Poonani--that a black Jew of Cochin had once married into the
D'Cruze family; while it was an open secret that an uncle of Mrs.
D'Cruze was at that very time doing menial work, connected with
cooking, for a Club in Southern India! He sent Mrs D'Cruze seven
rupees eight annas a month; but she felt the disgrace to the family