Daily he saw the butler steal milk, sugar, and tea, for his own use; the _hamal_ steal oil when he filled the lamps, for sale; the _malli_ steal flowers, for sale; the coachman steal carriage-candles; the cook steal a moiety of everything that passed through his hands—every one in that black underworld stealing, lying, back-biting, cheating, intriguing (and all meanwhile strictly and stoutly religious, even the sweeper-descended Goanese cook, the biggest thief of all, purging his Christian soul on Sunday mornings by Confession, and fortifying himself against the temptations of the Evil One at early Mass). Between these _nowker log_, the servant-people, and his own _jat_ or class, the _Sahib-log_, the master-people, were the troopers, splendid Sikhs, Rajputs, Pathans and Punjabis, men of honour, courage, physique, tradition. Grand fighters, loyal as steel while properly understood and properly treated—in other words, while properly officered. (Men, albeit, with deplorably little understanding of, or regard for, Pagett, M.P., and his kind, who yearn to do so much for them.) These men Damocles admired and loved, though even _they_ were apt to be very naughty in the bazaar, to gamble and to toy with opium, bhang, and (alleged) brandy, to dally with houris and hearts’-delights, to use unkind measures towards the good _bunnia_ and _sowkar_ who had lent them monies, and to do things outside the Lines that were not known in the Officers’ Mess. The boy preferred the Rissaldar-Major even to some Sahibs of his acquaintance—that wonderful old man-at-arms, horseman, _shikarri_, athlete, gentleman. (Yet how strange and sad to see him out of his splendid uniform, in sandals, _dhotie_, untrammelled shirt-tails, dingy old cotton coat and loose _puggri_, undistinguishable from a school-master, clerk, or post-man; so _un_-sahib-like.) And what a fine riding-master he made for an ambitious, fearless boy—though Ochterlonie Sahib said he was too cruel to be a good _horse_-master. How _could_ people be civilians and live away from regiments? Live without ever touching swords, lances, carbines, saddles? What a queer feeling it gave one to see the regiment go past the saluting base on review-days, at the gallop, with lances down. One wanted to shout, to laugh—to _cry_. (It made one’s mouth twitch and chin work.) Oh, to _lead_ the regiment as Father did—horse and man one welded piece of living mechanism. Father said you couldn’t ride till you had taken a hundred tosses, been pipped a hundred times. A hundred falls! Surely Father had _never_ been thrown—it must be impossible for such a rider to come off. See him at polo.