"What is your name?"
"H—— Sing, Sahib."
"There was a H—— Sing with me in '78," said the Field-Marshal meditatively. "With the Kuram Field Force. He was my orderly. He served me afterwards in Burmah and was promoted to subadar."
The aquiline features of the Sikh relaxed, his eyes of lustrous jet gleamed. "Even so, Sahib, he was my father."
"Good! he was a man. Be worthy of him. And you too are a subadar?"
"Yea, Sahib, I have eaten the King's salt these twelve years."
"That is well. Have you children?"
"Yea, Sahib, God has been very good."
"And your lady mother, is she alive?"
"The Lord be praised, she liveth."