I don't speak much of the language yet, so, would you mind translating to my servant that the next time he goes sick without giving me notice, and without putting oil in my lamp, I'll have him fed to the tiger before he's brought into my room?
Just tell him that quietly, will you?
Say it slowly so that it sinks in.

Thanks." Straight-faced as Cunningham himself, the Risaldar tongue-lashed the servant with harsh, tooth-rasping words that brought him up to attention.

Whether he interpreted or not the exact meaning of what Cunningham had said, he at least produced the desired effect; the servant mumbled apologetic nothings and slunk off the veranda backward--to go away and hold his sides with laughter at the back of the dak-bungalow.

There Mahommed Gunga found him afterward and administered a thrashing--not, as he was careful to explain, for disobedience, but for having dared to be amused at the Risaldar's discomfiture.
But there was still one point that weighed heavily on Mahommed Gunga's mind as the servant shuffled off and left him alone face to face with Cunningham.

There is as a very general rule not more than one man-eating tiger in a neighborhood, and not even the greenest specimen of subaltern new brought from home would be likely to mistake one for the other kind.
The man-eater was dead, and there was an engagement to shoot one that very morning.