“You’re right, Tanner,” said Smith just then; “but they’re military athletic sports. I say, here come the grandees.”
For in procession about twenty gorgeously-arrayed officials came marching in, and the next moment I gave Barkins a dig in the ribs.
“Look,” I said.
“All right; I see. Well, we needn’t mind. But I say, what a game if we hadn’t got leave!”
“I say,” whispered Smith, “look over there. The skipper and old Dishy! This was where they were coming, then; they’ll see us directly.”
“Let ’em,” said Barkins, as the party settled themselves. “Now then, we’re all here. All in to begin. We ought to have a programme. Here, Ching, what’s the first thing they do?”
“Ching no quite sure; p’laps lichi.”
“Lichi?” I said.
“You don’t know? You see velly gland—velly ploper for bad, bad man.”
He turned away to speak to a Chinese officer close at hand, while we began to feel wondering and suspicious, and gazed at each other with the same question on our lips.