The speech had that unreal sound which is the curse of the premeditated, except in the mouth of a born actor, which Sonny baba was not. And yet the young curves of the lips quivered. Perhaps the commonplace exclamation of the British boy mentioned before would have come more naturally to them, but Staff-captain Sonny baba of the Salvation Army was on parade, and bound to keep up his character. Nevertheless there was no lack of warmth in the grip he got of the old man's reluctant hand.
"Huzoor," faltered Dhurm Singh, taken aback at this condescension, and letting the sword he was about to present fall back on its belt with a clatter. The fact being that the said sword had been an occasion of much mental distress; as an actual ex-duffadar it was irregular, but as a possible bodyguard it was strictly de rigueur. Perhaps, however, times had changed in this as in other ways during those twenty years. The very uniform worn by the score or so of men drawn up on the deck was strange; and what did that squad of mem sahibs mean? Their dress did not seem so strange to the old Akâli, since in those palmy days before the Mutiny the fashions were not so far removed from the costume of a Salvation lass; but the tambourines!
"Come and speak to the General," said Sonny baba somewhat hurriedly. He spoke in English; but just as the formula, "Look after my traps" is "understanded of the common people" at once, so the word "General" brought a relieved comprehension to the old Sikh's face. There were blessed frogs on this one's coat also, which, like the word Mesopotamia, were charged with consolation.
The General looked at him with that curious philanthropic smile which, while it welcomes the object, has a kind of circumambient beam of mutual congratulation for all spectators of the benevolence.
"You have seen service, my good old friend," he exclaimed in fluent Urdu, as he pointed with a declamatory wave of his hand to the solitary medal, "but it was poor service to what we offer you now. Come to us, be our first-fruit, and help to carry the colours of the Great Army in the van of the fight."
A speech meant palpably for the gallery.
Dhurm Singh, however, took it at attention, and saluted--
"Pension-wallah, Huzoor, unfit for duty," he replied with modest brevity, indicating his empty sleeve.
The General caught at the occasion for even greater unction with a complacency which could not be concealed.
"The Great Army is recruited from those who are unfit for duty, from those who are sinners. Is it not so, comrades? Are we not all maimed, halt, blind, yet entering into life?"