"Now that's just what I want that young fool not to do," said Strickland. "He hasn't passed the lower standard yet, and he's an English boy born and bred, and his father before him. He has about as much tact as a bull, and he won't work quietly under my Inspector. I wish the Government would keep our service for country-born men. Those first five or six years give a man a pull that lasts him his life. Adam, if you were only old enough to be my 'Stunt"!" He looked down at the little fellow on the verandah. Adam was deeply interested in the dacoity, and, unlike a child, did not lose interest after the first week. On the contrary, he would ask his father every evening what had been done, and Strickland had drawn him a picture on the white wall of the verandah showing the different towns in which policemen were on the lookout for the thieves. They were Amritsar, Jullundur, Phillour, Gurgaon, in case the gang were moving south; Rawal Pindi and Peshawur, with Multan. Adam looked up at the picture as he answered: "There has been great dikh [trouble] in this case." "Very great trouble. I wish thou wert a young man and my assistant to help me." "Dost thou need help, my father?" Adam asked curiously, with his head on one side. "Very much." "Leave it all alone. It is bad. Let loose everything." "That must not be. Those beginning a business continue to the end." "Thou wilt continue to the end? Dost thou not know who did the dacoity?" Strickland shook his head. Adam turned to me with the same question, and I answered it in the same way. "What foolish people!" he said, and turned his back on us. He showed plainly in all our dealings afterwards how we had fallen in his opinion. Strickland told me that he would sit at the door of his work-room and stare at him for half an hour at a time as he went through his papers. Strickland seemed to work harder over the case than if he had been in office on the plains. "And sometimes I look up and I fancy the little chap's laughing at me. It's an awful thing to have a son. You see, he's your own and his own, and between the two you don't know quite how to handle him," said Strickland. "I wonder what in the world he thinks about?" I asked Adam this on my own account. He put his head on one side for a moment and replied: "In these days I think about great things; I do not play with Victor and the cow's child any more. He is only a baba."