eople ought to have been understanding.

It was not considered decent for a boy of twenty-one to do much more
than dare to be alive. For any man at all to offer advice or information
to his senior was rank presumption. Criticism was high treason. Sport,
such as tiger-shooting, was for those whose age and apoplectic temper
rendered them least fitted for it. Conservatism reigned: "High Toryism,
sir, old port, and proud Prerogative!"

Mahommed Gunga grinned into his beard at the reception that awaited the
youngster whom he had trained for months now in the belief that India
had nothing much to do except reverence him. He laughed aloud, when he
could get away to do it, at the flush of indignation on his protege's
face. Tall, lean-limbed, full of health and spirits, he had paid his
duty call on a General of Division; with the boyish enthusiasm that says
so plainly, "Laugh with me, for the world is mine!" he had boasted
his good luck on the road, only to be snubbed thoroughly and told that
tiger-shooting was not what he came for.

He took the snub like a man and made no complaint to anybody; he did
not even mention it to the other subalterns, who, most of them, made no
secret of their dissatisfaction and its hundred causes. He listened,
and it was not very long before it dawned on him that, had not Mahommed
Gunga gone with him to pay a call as well, the General Division would
not have so much as interviewed him.

Mahommed Gunga soon became the bane of his existence. The veteran seemed
in no hurry to go back to his estate that must have been in serious need
of management by this time, but would ride off on mysterious errands and
return with a dozen or more black-bearded horsemen each time. He would
introduce them to Cunningham in public whenever possible under the eyes
of outraged seniors who would swear and, fume and ride away disgust
at the reverence paid to "a mere boy, sir--a bally, ignorant young
jackanapes!"

Had Cunningham been other than a born soldier with his soldier senses
all on edge and sleepless, he would have fallen foul of disgrace within
a month. He was unattached as yet, and that fact gave opportunity to
the men who looked for it to try to "take the conceit out of the cub, by
gad."

"They "--everybody spoke of them as "they"--conceived the brilliant idea
of confronting the youngster with conditions which he lacked experience
to cope with. They set him to deal with circumstances which had long
ago prove