Away we went, heartily tired, leaving a few choice spirits to keep it up, the doctor talking in thick and almost inarticulate tone about “Sheshero’s Epeestles to Hatticus.” “You may well be tired of such a life as this,” said I, next morning; “it would kill me in a week; how do you stand it?” “Why,” replied Grundy, “I keep as clear of it as I can; besides, it is not very often that we have quite such a jollification as we had last night; however, the eternal racket we have does not suit me, and I shall cut it as soon as I can; it goes against my conscience, too, to witness some of the tricks they play upon one another. One day they hanged one of the lads for fun by the punkah rope till he was black in the face; and about a month ago sent a sub., a poor soft fellow, a voyage on the Ganges in an open boat; and as he did not return for a week, it was a mercy he was not starved or drowned.” “How was this, Grundy?” said I. “Why, the doctor and the lads were always poking fun at him, and making him a _boot_ (butt). One night, something such another as last, they made him believe he had been insoolted, and must fight. Sawney said he would rather take an apology, but they told him it was quite impossible that the affront could ever be washed out but with the blood of one of them. They said it must be settled immediately, and went out with lanterns to the back of the bungalow. The unfortunate lad was in a dreadful fright, but they made him fire; the pistols were loaded with powder only, but his antagonist fell; they said he had killed his man, and must fly immediately, or, if he fell into the hands of the civil power, he would inevitably be hanged. They hurried the poor young fellow off the ghaut, put him on board a fishing-canoe, telling him to row for his life till he came to some station, one hundred miles or so down the river, where he would have a better chance of a fair trial, and must give himself up. It was about a week before he was brought back to cantonments, burnt as black as a tinker. There was a terrible kick-up about it, and well there might be, for ’twas a cruel joke. The doctor and all the parties concerned were threatened with a court-martial; but, somehow or other, it all blew over.” Pranks such as these are now, I believe, happily rare in India, as everywhere else; but those who remember the country twenty or thirty years ago will doubtless be able to recall many such manifestations of boyish folly. It is not desirable that youth should be converted prematurely into thoughtful philosophy; care, in the ordinary course of things, will come, soon enough, and need not be hastened; but I am an advocate for its buoyancies being restrained within moderate bounds, that with it fun should not be allowed to degenerate into mischief or cruelty, wit in vulgarity, and friendly intimacy into coarse familiarity and practical joking.