When it has been established that you are no Persian, but an Indian, it must be remembered that there are only two kinds of Indians whom they do not despise, and they are Sikhs and Pathans--Sikhs, because a Sikh can smite three Arabs with one hand, and the Pathan for much the same reason.
"But I must not go as a Sikh because of the religious difficulty; neither may you be a Pathan, because you in no way resemble one, nor do you speak the Pushtu tongue.

But I will be a Pathan, because I can speak that language; therefore they will respect me as a man prone to fight readily and well.

And knowing that no Pathan would demean himself by being servant to a man of no account, they will more readily respect you, although you are neither Sikh nor yet Pathan but are supposed to be a Punjabi Mussulman.

Therefore, sahib, you must take a middle course between peace and pugnacity, pretending on the one hand to restrain my quarrelsomeness, yet on the other depending for safety on my readiness to take offense--as a man who is accustomed to a servant of mettle." The rest of his lecture was about niceties of behavior, religious observances, and so on.

It was a mystery how that man had never been promoted.