It has been her plan, ever since she heard that you were wrecked, that we should come out here to find you, and she has had me regularly trained for it.

I had masters for fencing and gymnastics, we always talked Hindustani when we were together, and she has encouraged me to fight with other boys, so that I should get strong and quick." That evening by the fire, Dick told his father the whole story of his life since he had been in India.
"Well, my lad, you have done wonders," his father said, when he had finished; "and if I had as much enterprise and go as you have, I should have been out of this place years ago.

But in the first place, I was very slow in picking up their lingo.

You see, until within the last three or four years, there have always been other Englishmen with me.

Of course we talked together, and as most of them were able to speak a little of the lingo, there was no occasion for me to learn it.
Then I was always, from the first, when they saw that I was handy at all sorts of things, kept at odd jobs, and so got less chance of picking up the language than those who were employed in drilling, or who had nothing to do but talk to their guards.