The book-wallah

This book-wallah is not an itinerant

This morning's commute reading (on a Triangle Transit Authority bus from Hillsborough to Chapel Hill^*) included the following "hilarious scene depicting the itinerant 'book-wallah,' in [George Orwell's 1937 novel] Burmese Days," quoted by Christopher Hitchens in his 2002 biography, Why Orwell Matters:

His system of exchange was that for any book in his bundle you gave him four annas, and any other book. Not quite any book, however, for the book-wallah, though analphabetic, had learned to recognise and refuse a Bible.
    "No, sahib," he would say plaintively, "no. This book" (he would turn it over disapprovingly in his flat brown hands) "this book with a black cover and gold letters—this one I cannot take. I know not how it is, but all sahibs are offering me this book, and none are taking it. What can it be that is in this black book? Some evil, undoubtedly." [p. 124]

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* Thursday was my last day for commuting by van from Mebane. My new work schedule dictates longer hours on my employer's premises.