'Well, I am dashed!' he said softly; 'this beats cockfightin'.'
It did, for Sri Hunumân having by this time grasped the fact that dignity was incompatible with dinner, had thrown the former aside, and having rolled the trousers hastily into a ball, had sat down on it, as on a cushion, while he reached round for sugar drops with both paws. Whereupon the original thief, thinking he saw an opportunity, made a snatch at the braces, which still streamed over the steps. To no purpose, however, since 'Oneyman only clapped both paws behind, and, the cushion still in situ, hopped to another place.
A roar of amusement echoed out over the steps, and half-a-dozen youngsters, fired with ambition, tried the same game; also without success. Sri Honeyman eluded every clutch, even the despairing one which Chris, muffled to the eyes in his ascetic's shawl, laid on those streaming braces. They came off in his hands to the crowd's huge delight.
"Ari, brother, thou hast the tail anyhow!" said some in congratulation, but poor Chris cursed inwardly. What were braces without the trousers to wear with them?
John Ellison, meanwhile, half choked with laughter, and drunk with mirth, was rolling about, kicking legs and arms, and shouting, "Go it, 'Oneyman! Go it, sonny!" until from some of the disappointed came the murmur that Jân-Ali-shân had better try and get the trousers himself, though all Mai Kâli's priests with sticks and staves had not been equal to making the old monkey give up the sugar! On this he rose breathlessly and looked round.
"You bet," he said, "it's Rule Britannier, that's w'ot it is." Whereupon he took another paper bag of sugar drops from his pocket and walked up to the culprit.
"Shab-bash! 'Oneyman," he said, with his usual affability, "you done that uncommon well. If ever you're in want of the shiny, they'd give you a fiver for that interlood at a music 'all. But time's up, sonny. Your turn's over. So just you change bags like a good boy or "--The rest of the sentence was a melodious whistling of
"Britons never, never will be slaves,"
a dexterous emptying of the bribe, and an equally dexterous clutch at the trousers, accompanied by a forcible kick behind. The three combined were instantly successful, and there was Jân-Ali-shân carefully dusting his new possession. Then he held them up, and said suavely--
"Fair exchange ain't no robbery; but if any gent owns these pants, let 'im utter"--which remark he translated in hideous Hindustani into "Koi admi upna breeches hai, bolo!"