Pesi Pestonjee, the manager, was secured a week later. A friend at the Municipal Corporation had recommended him. At the first meeting, Pestonjee appeared obsessive about cleanliness, his own and of the space surrounding him. With his white handkerchief, he wiped the four square inches of the table where his right palm rested. Every two minutes he checked the cuffs of his shirt, which like his trousers, were white. He retained no facial hair. He had an uncanny resemblance to a squirrel, perhaps it was his teeth. He appeared to economize on movement. If his mouth moved, nothing else did. He has long teeth and is quite English in colour, even in taste, Thompson thought.

The pastor at the Presbyterian Church requested Thompson to hire Nelson Natwarlal, the office assistant.

‘Can you do me a favour, Archie, if it isn’t too much trouble? I need you to employ someone—a young boy.’

‘Is he your relative, Pastor?’

‘No, Archie, a native. Nelson.’

‘Nelson?’

‘I asked the young man to choose a name. He said Nelson Napoleon. I told him the world wasn’t ready for so much in one man. So, Nelson it was.’

‘Better Nelson in the land of the Queen. The papists have enough followers already.’

‘It’s not unusual among the converts. The other day a priest was telling me that Travancore is full of Nelsons and Napoleons.’

‘Haven’t Christians lived there for long?’

‘Since 52 AD. Saint Thomas was there, allegedly.’

‘Doubting Thomas? What did he doubt, Pastor?’

‘The resurrection of Jesus. He felt the wound himself.’

‘And was he convinced?’

‘Still a debate. We believe Thomas believed due to faith alone. He did not literally touch Jesus’s wound. The Catholics believe he did and his experience strengthened his faith.’

‘Risky path that is. Does he have any skills?’

‘He can understand English. He speaks Marathi, his native language.’

‘What good is that?’

‘I baptized him. Didn’t you say that they should give up their religion? He has, and now nobody wants to employ him.’

‘I could use an errand boy.’

‘That will do  . for now.’

When Pestonjee first met Nelson, he felt he had seen that face before, on an older person. Nelson was sixteen. At sixteen he oiled his hair every day, he had a pencil moustache, his eyebrows had merged in the middle, and he wore a khadi side cap that would later become popular as the Gandhi cap. An English visitor had remarked that Nelson looked like a thin-moustached kangaroo.

‘You look like Natwarlal,’ Pestonjee said. Nelson became Nelson Natwarlal in the official records of the company.