I began to feel confoundedly nervous, and to apprehend that I was now about to taste a few of the incipient sweets of military subjection. The adjutant buckled on his accoutrements, I did the like with mine, which, at Marpeet’s suggestion, I had brought with me, and off we walked to the colonel’s.
“Rather a harsh man, the colonel, isn’t he?” said I, as we went along, hoping to elicit a little consolation in the shape of a negative.
“Why,” said the adjutant, “he is certainly a great stickler for duty, and fond of working the young hands—what we call a ‘tight hand.’”
I was “floored.”
The colonel’s bungalow was on the ramparts of the city, overlooking the Jumna, and the expanse of country through which it flows. Orderlies and a posse of silver-stick men, &c., were about the door; we entered, and the adjutant presented me to Colonel Bobbery, one of the most extraordinary-looking little mortals I ever beheld.
The colonel’s height was about five feet four—perhaps less—and his body as nearly approaching to an oblate spheriod as any body I ever beheld. This orbicular mass was supported on two little legs, adorned with very crumpled tights, and a pair of Hessian boots, then much worn, and minus the usual appendage of tassels. His neck, which was remarkably long, was girt round with a very tight black stock, on the top of which, as may be supposed, was his head, the most extraordinary part of this very original specimen of “the human form divine;” his front face (profile he had none, which could be properly so called, bating an irregular curve with a large bulbous projection about the middle) was fat and rubicund; his nose Bardolphian, flanked by two goggle eyes, in which the several expressions of intellect, fun, and sensuality were singularly blended. A small Welsh wig completed the oddest tout ensemble I had yet seen in India.
“Oh! you are the young gentleman we have been expecting for the last five months?—better late than never—glad to see you at last, sir.”
I mentioned something about friends—hospitality—and detention.
“Oh, yes, yes! I know all about that; the old story; yes, yes! but you must be quicker in your future movements—eh, Marchwell?” said he, turning to the adjutant; “verbum sap., you know, verbum sap.”
After a rather prolonged conversation, during which I informed him I had done duty with the Zuburdust Bullumteers, and gave him some account of his friend, Mr. Sympkin, which he was pleased to receive, I rose to take my leave.