I examined him, and found he had a fatty tumour on the outer side of the right thigh. I said-- “It will be necessary to remove this swelling with the knife. It consists of a mass of fat.” “Bisyar khôb,” said the Brigadier; “very good; remove it.” “Kai?” said I. “When?” “Hala,” said he. “Now.” “Certainly; come into the other room,” for I did not want to spoil my beautiful carpets. I was short of chloroform, and I said to the Armenian, “Tell the man I shall hurt him.” The man said, “Khair ast, it is nothing. Tell the Doctor Sahib, if he cut me to pieces I shall not speak.” “O, all right,” I said, “tell him to lie on the ground.” He lay down. I made a longitudinal incision over the tumour, and proceeded to dissect it out. It must have been very painful, but the man said nothing, neither did I; but the bystanders, when the mass of yellowish white fat appeared between the edges of the wound, exclaimed, “Wah! wah!” in excited admiration. I bandaged the leg, and the soldier walked back to his barracks. He had to be in bed, however, for some time afterwards. We were very good friends after that--the soldier and I. I am sure I don’t know why, except that I admired his pluck, and had hurt him. [Sidenote: The Country Cousin among the Court Pages.] I called on the Hadji Jan Mahomed again, and found his young son there. Both the Hadji and his son kept to the pure Afghan costume, with the turban and picturesque flowing robes. The boy afterwards became a Court Page, but he looked very out of place among the Europeanized youngsters who swaggered about at the Palace. He looked out of date and countryfied in his robes, and he felt it. I noticed when I was at the Hadji’s what beautiful feet he and his son had: they were like the feet of a Greek statue. The toes had shape. They were not degenerated like ours, by descent through a boot-wearing ancestry. One of the Pages lived next door to me; he was an ugly little beggar, but rather amusing, and the Armenian suggested one evening, to while away an hour, that we should go and see him. He was hard at work puzzling over Euclid. It seemed very odd to see the well-known diagrams in the midst of Persian writing. We played cards--a sort of three-handed whist--and other games. They taught them to me, but I have completely forgotten how they were played. The cards used were just the same as those we have, except that they were cheap ones, made in Germany, and were exceedingly dirty. Another Page-boy lived opposite; next door to the Mirza Abdur Rashid. He was an exceedingly pretty boy, and was, in consequence, very gorgeously dressed in a scarlet and gold uniform and Kashmîr turban. Personal beauty is a fairly certain cause of rapid promotion at the Amîr’s Court. Some of the Court Pages are the sons of nobles, of officers, or of wealthy men. Others are slaves. [Illustration] CHAPTER XII. THE INHABITANTS OF AFGHANISTAN.