"I don't know if you are aware, Mr. Johns, that Mr. Colson really is a first-rate whip. I am informed that it was his magnificent driving which first attracted the Rajah's attention."
Mr. Johns did not exhibit much appearance of concern.
"I guess I'll fix him, anyhow. I haven't driven a stage over some of the worst country in the western states of America for nothing. I'll back myself to drive a coach-and-four along a wall just wide enough to hold the wheels--and I'll take you as a passenger, if you like to come."
"Thank you, Mr. Johns, my tastes do not incline that way."
"Don't you worry, Mr. Greenall. I mean to take on the whole lot of 'em, one after the other, and show 'em a thing or two all round. These gentlemen here fancy they know a little, but we'll be more than even with them before we've done."
The driving match came off. I do not know how they manage similar affairs in England. I have sometimes wondered. But I am under the impression that they are not managed on the lines on which they managed that driving match in Ahmednugger.
The way in which they managed it there was this. Mr. Colson was to drive upon the Monday, Mr. Johns upon the Wednesday. Each was to drive the same team--eight-in-hand. The horses, by-the-way, came out of the Rajah's stables. The course was to be up and down the streets of Ahmednugger, and then for a certain distance outside the city. The judges occupied the front of the coach. I had a seat among the insignificant people at the back. On the whole, I was content to sit behind. The proceedings, in the streets of Ahmednugger, were distinctly exciting--almost too exciting, I felt, for me. Those streets were very narrow, and they were blocked with traffic, be it understood. Mr. Colson and Mr. Johns, each with his eight horses, and a coach load of passengers, went down those streets at full speed, as if they had been fifty yards wide, and as if there had not been a soul in sight. What damages were done, and what was the list of the killed and wounded, I have never been informed. I never quite realized what it meant to belong to a subject race, till then. It appeared to me that, in the eyes of my companions, a native had, as a matter of course, no rights at all. We drove over whole streets full of them, in style. My heart was in my mouth most of the time. We dashed round impossible corners, shaking native tenements to their foundations. But we kept ourselves alive somehow. The peaceful pedestrians were slain. I am no judge of coachmanship--of such coachmanship as that, at any rate. Those who were judges, without a dissentient voice, awarded the palm to Mr. Johns and, in consequence it was said, Mr. Colson entered himself as a candidate for delirium tremens. He was a dreadful man.
It seemed as if Mr. Johns was prepared to match himself against the men of Ahmednugger at exactly those things at which each man fancied he was strongest. That is what he did do. He challenged any one to meet him at driving, or at billiards. And, when his challenge--for what seemed to me to be sufficient reasons--met with no response, he challenged any one to ride him. That challenge was taken up. But he beat all takers. He had a way with a horse which seemed little else than magical. A horse would jump six feet for him, when, apparently, it would not jump six inches for any other man in Ahmednugger. I don't know how it was, but so it was. I know nothing of Mr. Johns, beyond what I am writing. I never heard his story, nor how it was that a man of genius--he was a man of genius--came to find himself a broken-down small bookmaker in that little town "up country." Perhaps he was another exemplification of the fact that only mediocrity succeeds.
I know that I was more than even with the men of Ahmednugger--by deputy. The band played to them, as it had played to me. He made them face the music, and there was not one of them who did not leave his scalp upon the ground. My belt was adorned with trophies--by deputy. When Mr. Johns had beaten the men of Ahmednugger--as they had beaten me--at riding, and at driving, and at billiards, he took them on at shooting. And, so to speak, he shot their heads off. He showed them that, in the presence of this man, they were as nothing, and less than nothing. He even challenged Mr. Tebb to smash glass balls. He fixed the point from which they were to fire at an abnormal distance, and, if I remember rightly, he beat Mr. Tebb by about a score. After he had annihilated that presumptuous young vagabond, Mr. Johns informed me that shooting at glass balls really was not shooting. I was quite prepared to admit it. He said that it was only a trick. When you had once mastered the trick, it was impossible to miss. Perhaps. I have never fired at glass balls since then, so I have no reason to suppose that I have mastered the trick. When I do again fire at glass balls I am inclined to think that I shall not experience the slightest difficulty in missing every one of them.