A Traveller’s Tale

There’s a North Indian line, whose most cherished design
Is to cut all expenses uncommonly fine.

It once was my fate on this railway to wait
An hour and a half for a train that was late.

The one consolation I found at the station
Was engaging the staff in a long conversation.

And making him shirk in the meantime his work
Of pointsman and signalman, porter and clerk.

He carried a fragment of greasy old rag,
Which had once been a green or perhaps a red flag.

‘Why don’t they supply a new flag?’ said I.
He answered me ‘Sahib, ye-Scotch line to hai.’

I did not forget, the next time I met
The Agent, to tell him this story, you bet.

He said, when I came to the end of the same,
‘I’m thinking ye’ll have remembered his name.’

When I said that I had, ‘Man,’ he said, but I’m glad.
Ram Prasad, was it? Thank you. I’ll fine Ram Prasad.

How dare the man wag a dirty old rag
When he knows he’s expected to find his own flag?’

A. G. Shirreff
(1917)