On days of festival Abdul always gave him a pice to buy sweetmeats with, and he drove a hard bargain with either Wahid Khan or Sheik Luteef, who were rival dealers.

Sonny Sahib always got more of the sticky brown balls of sugar and butter and cocoa-nut for his pice than any of the other boys.

Wahid Khan and Sheik Luteef both thought it brought them luck to sell to him.

But afterwards Sonny Sahib invariably divided his purchase with whoever happened to be his bosom friend at the time--the daughter of Ram Dass, the blacksmith, or the son of Chundaputty, the beater of brass--in which he differed altogether from the other boys, and which made it fair perhaps.
At six Sonny Sahib began to find the other boys unsatisfactory in a number of ways.

He was tired of making patterns in the dust with marigolds for one thing.