“Help me down, Oscar,” cried the pitying Io. “I must see how much my poor boy is hurt.”
“There is not much harm done, I think,” observed Mr. Coldstream.—“Stand up and shake yourself, Thud. There are certainly no bones broken; the road was perfectly soft. Leave off crying, Thud; tears are unworthy of any one but a baby. There seems to be very little the matter.”
“Little the matter!” howled Thud. “Would you have called the matter little if you had had your two front teeth knocked out?” and, removing his handkerchief, Thud showed a tear-stained face, with a mouthwhose beauty was by no means improved by an unsightly gap in the upper row of his teeth.
Thud carefully preserved the two teeth. Dr. Pinfold’s prediction had come true: these rare treasures, at least to their owner, were the first to be placed in the specimen bag.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE LONE VILLAGE.
Thud could not be persuaded to mount Ma Ping again. Io pleaded to be allowed to walk, at least for a part of the stage; so she and Maha descended the elephant ladder, and for an hour Thud had the howdah all to himself. Coldstream then made the lazy lad descend, to walk the rest of the way, while his sister and her attendant resumed their places. Thud grumbled not a little, and thought the stage interminable. However, the halting-place for the night was reached at last: it was under a thick banyan tree, whose dense foliage would protect from the night dews those who had to sleep on the ground. The servants were busy pitching the small tent which Coldstream had brought for his wife.
“I can’t sleep on the bare earth,” said Thud doggedly; “it is so hard, and I should catch my death of cold.”
“I am going to sleep on the ground,” observed Oscar. “We have plenty of rugs and wraps. I have often made my bed beneath a tree.”
“You, I daresay; but I’m different. I’ve a theory that development of brain makes the bodily frame more delicate, and that philosophers need to sleep softer and fare better than other men.”