Conservatism reigned: "High Toryism, sir, old port, and proud Prerogative!" Mahommed Gunga grinned into his beard at the reception that awaited the youngster whom he had trained for months now in the belief that India had nothing much to do except reverence him.

He laughed aloud, when he could get away to do it, at the flush of indignation on his protege's face.

Tall, lean-limbed, full of health and spirits, he had paid his duty call on a General of Division; with the boyish enthusiasm that says so plainly, "Laugh with me, for the world is mine!" he had boasted his good luck on the road, only to be snubbed thoroughly and told that tiger-shooting was not what he came for.
He took the snub like a man and made no complaint to anybody; he did not even mention it to the other subalterns, who, most of them, made no secret of their dissatisfaction and its hundred causes.

He listened, and it was not very long before it dawned on him that, had not Mahommed Gunga gone with him to pay a call as well, the General Division would not have so much as interviewed him.
Mahommed Gunga soon became the bane of his existence.

The veteran seemed in no hurry to go back to his estate that must have been in serious need of management by this time, but would ride off on mysterious errands and return with a dozen or more black-bearded horsemen each time.