With my ear to a hole in the shutters I could hear loud snores within.

King picked up a stone and started to thunder on the door with it.
The ensuing din brought heads to every upper window, and rows of other heads, like trophies of a ghastly hunt, began to decorate the edges of the roofs.

Several people shouted to us, but King went on hammering, and at last a sleepy telegraph babu, half-in and half-out of his black alpaca jacket, opened to us.
"The wire is broken," he said, and slammed the door in our faces.
King picked up the stone and beat another tattoo.
"How long has the wire been broken ?" he demanded.
"Since morning." "Who sent the last message ?" "Maharajah Jihanbihar sahib." "In full or in code ?" "In code." He slammed the door again and bolted it, and whether or not he really fell asleep, within the minute he was giving us a perfect imitation of a hog snoring.

What was more, the crowd began to take its cue from the babu, and a roof-tile broke at our feet as a gentle reminder that we had the town's permission to depart.

Without caste-marks, and in those shabby, muddy, torn clothes, we were obviously undesirables.
So we made for the railroad station, where, since we had money, none could refuse to sell us third-class tickets.