The boys had a very good time. They would call down to the children walking along the dusty road and twit them for not being able to ride in state as they were doing, just as children do the world over. Everybody gave them the road, or, rather, the big elephants took it as a matter of course. The old elephant took all kinds of liberties with the passers-by, evidently just for the fun of the thing. He would give a fellow trudging along a nudge on the back with the end of his trunk, which would nearly scare the fellow to death; or he would sneeze, as it were, into a lazy beggar's face, which would make the "Holy Man" very angry indeed. Once he deliberately took a nice ripe melon out of a cart and ate it, while its owner, who was fast asleep, never missed it. "He is a wise one," said Uncle Achmed, "but what is the matter there?" he cried, looking back. The matter was that a wedding procession had just come out of a side road. The bride was in a litter covered with gay curtains and gold embroideries, and the bridegroom was riding a white horse which was all decked with flowers, and had his mane and tail dyed pink. With all this splendour there was much beating of drums and music from other noisy instruments. One of the new elephants had taken a great fright and backed up against the bride's litter. This had made the bridegroom's horse rear up and nearly upset him on the dusty road. The poor little bride screamed, and the crowd of relations and friends abused the elephant and all his family and kindred back through many generations, several hundreds of years, which is the true Hindu fashion of showing one's anger. The drivers prodded and punched, but the young elephant would not move. Then old Ranji, the wise old elephant, wheeled around and went up to the naughty and obstinate youngster and gave his trunk such a twist that he squealed out in pain. Then Ranji gave him a push out into the middle of the road again, and after this kept the young one right in front of him. He was so scared that he scarcely dared to swing his trunk from side to side again; and all went smoothly until they lumbered into the great courtyard of Achmed's house, which sat in the midst of a wide expanse of rice-fields. As they climbed down out of the "_howdah_," the head servant made a "_salaam_," or bow, before the master until his forehead touched the ground, which is a way of being very polite. He then told Achmed that the Colonel _Sahib_ and the little _Sahib_ had done him the honour of coming to see him, and were even now sitting in the garden awaiting his coming. All Englishmen in India are called _Sahib_ and English women are called _Mem-sahib_. Achmed found the Colonel sitting on a bed under a big tree in the garden. This bed the head servant had brought from the house for him to sit on, for this is one of the forms of politeness shown to English visitors at a Hindu home.