He suffered the usual penalties for breaking out of bounds when there was cholera in the city.

This was before he had learned to write fair English, and so was obliged to find a bazar letter-writer.

He was, of course, indicted for smoking and for the use of abuse more full-flavoured than even St Xavier's had ever heard.

He learned to wash himself with the Levitical scrupulosity of the native-born, who in his heart considers the Englishman rather dirty.
He played the usual tricks on the patient coolies pulling the punkahs in the sleeping-rooms where the boys threshed through the hot nights telling tales till the dawn; and quietly he measured himself against his self-reliant mates.
They were sons of subordinate officials in the Railway, Telegraph, and Canal Services; of warrant-officers, sometimes retired and sometimes acting as commanders-in-chief to a feudatory Rajah's army; of captains of the Indian Marine Government pensioners, planters, Presidency shopkeepers, and missionaries.

A few were cadets of the old Eurasian houses that have taken strong root in Dhurrumtollah--Pereiras, De Souzas, and D'Silvas.