Things seemed not to be proceeding as he wished.
There was one babu behind the window--a mild, unhappy-looking Punjabi, or Dekkani Mussulman.

There was another at the scales, who knew almost no English: his duty was to weigh--do sums--write the result on a slip, and then justify his arithmetic to office babu and passenger, before any sort of progress could be made.

The fact that all passengers shouted at him to hurry or be reported to big superiors complicated the process enormously; and the equally discordant fact that no passenger--and especially not Georges Coutlass--desired or intended to pay one anna more than he could avoid by hook, crook, or argument, made the game amusing to the casual looker-on, but hastened nothing (except tempers).

The temperature within the vestibule was 112' by the official thermometer.
"You pair of black murderers!" yelled Coutlass as we took our place in line.

"You bloody robbers! You pickpockets! You train-thieves! Go out and dig your graves! I will make an end of you!" "You should not use abusive language" the babu retorted mildly, stopping to speak, and then again to wipe his spectacles, and his forehead, and his hands, and to glance at the clock, and to mutter what may or may not have been a prayer.
Coutlass exploded.
"Shouldn't, eh?
Who the hell are you to tell me what I shouldn't do?
Sell me a ticket, you black plunderer, d'you hear! Look! Listen!" He snatched a piece of paper from the babu's hand and turned to face the impatient crowd.
"This hell-cat--" (the unhappy babu looked less like a hell-cat than any vision of the animal I ever imagined) "wants to make out that seventy-one times seven annas and three pice is forty-nine rupees, eleven annae! Oh, you charlatan! You mountebank! You black-blooded robber! You miscreant! Cut your throat, I order you!" The babu expostulated, stammered, quailed.