“Weell,” said the doctor, “a rooee muchee’s nae bad thing, if it’s frash.”
At this moment, three more ensigns, inmates of Griff Hall, hove in sight, rattling up on tattooes, or galloways—tits combining some pleasant varieties of fiddle-head, goose-rump, swish-tail, &c.
In India, every one (i.e., European officer) must keep a piece of horse-flesh of some sort or other, though it must be allowed that griffins, for obvious reasons, were never remarkable for possessing superior studs. As the new-comers approached, full canter and shuffle, the doctor put forth a screech, compounded of an Indian war-whoop and a view halloo, by way of welcome: the fun was evidently beginning.
One of the ensigns on the terrace jumped down into the road, took his hat off his head, whirled it round, and hooted loudly, to make his friends’ horses bolt or shy. The doctor, too, seizing a sort of long besom which stood in an angle of the bungalow wall, darted forward with it to aid in putting the detachment to the rout.
“Doctor, what the deuce are you about, man?” shouted the immediate object of his attack; “don’t be so infernally ridiculous.”
“Stir him oop with the lang pole,” roared the doctor, nothing daunted; “stir oop the bombardier’s wonderful animal.”
And so saying, he poked the besom under the tail of the tattoo, who resented this rear attack by launching out his heels, jerked off the Lieut. Fireworker’s cap, and finally bolted, with his rider half-unseated, across the compound, amidst the shouts and laughter of his comrades, the doctor, with his wild red locks flying, and his feet in slippers, pursuing him with his besom at the pas de charge.
McScreechum soon returned, puffing and blowing, and flourishing his besom, and the Lieut. Fireworker shortly after joined the group, having disposed of his runaway Bucephalus, but with a countenance darkly portentous of mischief.
“Dr. McScreechum,” said he, “I’ll thank you, sir, not to take such liberties with me in future, for I will not put up with them.”
“Stir him oop with the lang pole,” said the doctor, still flourishing his besom.