223
Nawab Sir Faridoon Mulk*

Mr. Eardley Norton, a well-known barrister
practising at Madras and a successful man
of the world, is said to have celebrated Mr.
Faridoonji in verse as " jthe cheeriest humbug in
all Hyderabad/' It was a comic label which
stuck to poor Mr. Faridoonji for a long time and
made me curious to look into the interior of the
man to find out the truth about him. As I got
to know him and had more than one glimpse of
his heart, I began to think that it was the good-
ness of it and no trickery that prompted the
ceaseless desire to please. Genuine good nature
was father to his unchanging " all-hail " manner
which had become a mannerism.

I found Mr. Faridoonji an interesting study.
His neatly-trimmed peaked beard and carefully
waxed moustache so Frenchified him as to raise
in men's minds a suspicion of insincerity. I
resolved to carry my investigation beyond the
outward appearance and watch him from year to
year till I saw the mask crumbling away. At last
I found, that his over-polished sociality of manner
could no longer conceal from me what was natural
and lovable in him.

I had seen Mr. Faridoonji for the first time
in 1884, and met him as an acquaintance in 1891
on my first return from England, and again in
1896 after my second return; and this time as a

* K.C.I.E-, C.S.L, C.B.E.