“Bother your old belt!” cried Glyn. “Who wants to talk quietly and sensibly now? I came to bed to sleep, and every time I’m dozing off nicely and comfortably you begin burr, burr, burr, and I can’t understand you a bit.”
“I wish we were in India,” said Singh angrily.
“I wish you were,” growled Glyn.
“I should like to set a punkah-wallah to pick up a chatty of water and douse it all over you.”
“He’d feel very uncomfortable afterwards,” said Glyn, “if I got hold of him. Oh, bother! bother! bother!” he cried, sitting up in bed. “Now then, preach away. What do you want to say about your ugly old belt?”
“Go to sleep,” cried Singh, and there was a dull sound of Glyn’s head going bang down into the pillow, in which his right ear was deeply buried while his left was carefully corked with a finger, and a minute or two later nothing was heard in the dormitory but the steady restful breathing of two strong healthy lads.
“What shall we do to-day; go out somewhere for a good walk?” asked Glyn the next morning.
“No; I want to have a quiet talk. Let’s go down to the jungle, as you call it,” said Singh.
“Thy slave obeys,” cried Glyn. “But, jungle! poor old jungle! What wouldn’t I give for a ride on a good elephant again—a well-trained fellow, who would snap off boughs and turn one into a chowri to whisk off the flies.”
“Wouldn’t old Ramball’s Rajah do for you?”