The first thing I did with my new pigeons was to give them food and fresh water. I never let them drink the water they bathed in. Since Gay-Neck's wing smelled of fish, I gave him separate quarters from the other pigeons. It took three days longer and three good baths before Gay-Neck was fit for decent society. In passing, let me remark that my father made me return the money to the man who had bought Gay-Neck with such deplorable results. To tell you the truth, I did not wish to then. But now I feel I did right in obeying my parent. After a fortnight and before unbinding the wings of my newly acquired pigeons, I bribed them to love me. Every morning I would put some millet seed and peanuts in ghee (clarified butter). After they had been soaked in butter all day, I gave a dozen each to every one of my pets. They were so fond of those delicacies that in two days' time they had formed the habit of coming to me before five in the afternoon, begging for buttered seeds. In three more days I freed their wings, in a subtle way, undoing them about fifteen minutes before five. They all flew off the moment they felt their liberty. But lo, after the first exhilaration of finding their freedom had passed, they flew down to the roof again for their meal of buttered peanuts and millet seeds! It is a pity that we have to win our pigeons' confidence by feeding their stomachs, but alas! I have noticed that there are many men and women who resemble pigeons in this respect! CHAPTER II WAR TRAINING (_Continued_) The new pigeons gradually learnt to fly further and further away from the house as day followed day. At the end of a month they were taken a distance of fifty miles and more and uncaged, and with the exception of two who apparently fled home to their previous owner, all returned to me under Gay-Neck's leadership. The question of an undisputed leadership was not an easy one to settle. In fact a serious battle had to be fought out between Gay-Neck and two new males, Hira and Jahore. The last named was a pure black tumbler. His feathers shone like panther's fur. He was gentle and not fierce, yet he refused to submit to Gay-Neck's leadership of the entire flock. You know how quarrelsome and full of display carriers generally are. On my roof all the carrier males used to strut, coo and talk as if each one of them was the monarch of all he surveyed. If Gay-Neck thought himself Napoleon, Hira (Diamond), the white carrier,--(as white "as the core of sunlight," to express it poetically)--considered himself Alexander the Great, while Jahore (Black Diamond), though not a carrier, let it be known that he was Julius Cæsar and Marshal Foch rolled in one. Besides those three, there were other conceited males, but they had already been beaten in battle by one or the other of the above three. Now it was necessary to fight out the question of absolute leadership of the entire flock.