If only, like the Babu, he could enjoy the dignity of a letter and a number--and a price upon his head! Some day he would be all that and more.

Some day he might be almost as great as Mahbub Ali! The housetops of his search should be half India; he would follow Kings and Ministers, as in the old days he had followed vakils and lawyers' touts across Lahore city for Mahbub Ali's sake.

Meantime, there was the present, and not at all unpleasant, fact of St Xavier's immediately before him.

There would be new boys to condescend to, and there would be tales of holiday adventures to hear.

Young Martin, son of the tea-planter at Manipur, had boasted that he would go to war, with a rifle, against the head-hunters.
That might be, but it was certain young Martin had not been blown half across the forecourt of a Patiala palace by an explosion of fireworks; nor had he...