“Oh, that was right. You were not both on him at once?”
“Oh no, sir; it was all fair.”
“Then Glyn thoroughly whipped him, eh?”
“Yes, sir, thoroughly.”
The Colonel turned to his son, and looked him over again; and then, after another two-handed tug at his moustache, he said slowly:
“I say, Glyn, old chap, you got it rather warmly. But tut, tut, tut, tut! This won’t do. What did that old chap say: ‘Let dogs delight to bark and bite’? Here, I have been talking to the Doctor, and the Doctor has been talking to me. Look here, you, Singh, military fighting, after proper discipline, and done by fighting men, is one thing; schoolboy fighting is quite another, not for gentlemen. It’s low and blackguardly.—Do you hear, Glyn?” he cried turning on his son. “Blackguardly, sir—blackguardly. Look at your faces, sir, and see how you have got yourselves marked. But er—er—”
He picked his pocket-handkerchief up from where he had spread it over his knees and blew another blast. “This er—this er—big fellow that you thrashed—big disagreeable fellow—bit of a bully, eh?”
“Regular tyrant, father. We hadn’t been here a month, before not a day passed without his insulting Singh or making us uncomfortable.”
“Ha! insulted Singh, did he?”
“Yes, sir,” cried that individual through his set teeth. “He was always calling me nigger, and mocking at me in some way.”