"I don't know if you are aware, Mr. Johns, that Mr. Colson really is a first-rate whip. I am informed that it was his magnificent driving which first attracted the Rajah's attention." Mr. Johns did not exhibit much appearance of concern. "I guess I'll fix him, anyhow. I haven't driven a stage over some of the worst country in the western states of America for nothing. I'll back myself to drive a coach-and-four along a wall just wide enough to hold the wheels--and I'll take you as a passenger, if you like to come." "Thank you, Mr. Johns, my tastes do not incline that way." "Don't you worry, Mr. Greenall. I mean to take on the whole lot of 'em, one after the other, and show 'em a thing or two all round. These gentlemen here fancy they know a little, but we'll be more than even with them before we've done." The driving match came off. I do not know how they manage similar affairs in England. I have sometimes wondered. But I am under the impression that they are not managed on the lines on which they managed that driving match in Ahmednugger. The way in which they managed it there was this. Mr. Colson was to drive upon the Monday, Mr. Johns upon the Wednesday. Each was to drive the same team--eight-in-hand. The horses, by-the-way, came out of the Rajah's stables. The course was to be up and down the streets of Ahmednugger, and then for a certain distance outside the city. The judges occupied the front of the coach. I had a seat among the insignificant people at the back. On the whole, I was content to sit behind. The proceedings, in the streets of Ahmednugger, were distinctly exciting--almost too exciting, I felt, for me. Those streets were very narrow, and they were blocked with traffic, be it understood. Mr. Colson and Mr. Johns, each with his eight horses, and a coach load of passengers, went down those streets at full speed, as if they had been fifty yards wide, and as if there had not been a soul in sight. What damages were done, and what was the list of the killed and wounded, I have never been informed. I never quite realized what it meant to belong to a subject race, till then. It appeared to me that, in the eyes of my companions, a native had, as a matter of course, no rights at all. We drove over whole streets full of them, in style. My heart was in my mouth most of the time. We dashed round impossible corners, shaking native tenements to their foundations. But we kept ourselves alive somehow. The peaceful pedestrians were slain. I am no judge of coachmanship--of such coachmanship as that, at any rate. Those who were judges, without a dissentient voice, awarded the palm to Mr. Johns and, in consequence it was said, Mr. Colson entered himself as a candidate for delirium tremens. He was a dreadful man.