But as they turned carelessly from the end, one said to his neighbour, 'Ari bhai! We could have taught the tope khana-wallahs a lesson.' And the neighbour laughed.
'Yea, if they gave us the chance, but they will not. They know we of the pultans are bigger and stronger than they of the rigiments, but they would not have the world know it; as if it could not see!'
As he stood aside cheerfully, almost respectfully, to let a smooth-faced fresh-coloured boy in a red coat pass, he proved his words, for he towered a good head above him, and could have covered two of him in breadth.
Nevill Lloyd, standing beside the Arbuthnots' carriage, overheard the remark and frowned.
'I should like to challenge those fellows,' he said vexedly. 'I know we could pull 'em over and knock the conceit out of 'em.'
'Then why don't you?' asked Lesley, smiling; she and the aide-de-camp had become fast friends, chiefly over their mutual devotion to Grace Arbuthnot.
'They won't let us. They say it is likely to rouse ill-feeling and all that. And then,' he went on frankly, 'of course it wouldn't do to get licked too often, you know, and one can't expect our boys to collar men who do dumb-bells all day like those fellows do.'
Grace, sitting beside Lesley, thought they might do worse.
But, boys or men, the sports were good, and held half cantonments and not a few from the city, interested in the various events, while the sun sank slowly to the curiously limitless limit of the level horizon. Lateefa the kite-maker was there, amongst others, finding a sale for his airy nothingnesses betweenwhiles, as he passed through the crowd with that quaint cry of--
'Use eyes and choose
Eyes use and choose.'