"Let there be no delay about the carpet. She would not accept anything else." THE PRIVATE ACCOUNT _Scene_: Three and a half miles across the Border--Kohat way. _Time_: The edge of sunset. Single room in a stone built tower house reached by a ladder from the ground. An Afghan woman, wrapped in a red cotton quilt, squats on the floor trimming a small kerosene lamp. Her husband, an elderly Afghan with a purple dyed beard, lies on a native cot, covered by a striped blue and white cloth. He is wounded in the knee and hip. A Government rifle leans against the cot. Their son, aged twenty, kneels beside him, unfolding a letter. As the mother places the lighted lamp in a recess in the wall, the son picks up the rifle and pushes the half-opened door home with the butt. The wife passes her husband a filled pipe of tobacco, blowing on the charcoal ball in the bowl. SON [_as he unfolds letter_]. It is from France. His Regiment is still there. FATHER. What does he say about the money? SON [_reading_]. He says: "I am made easy by the news that you are now receiving my pay-allotment regularly. You may depend upon its coming every month henceforward. I have also sent eleven rupees over and above the allotment. It is a gift towards the purchase of the machine needed in your business." FATHER [_drawing a cheap nickel-plated revolver from his breast_]. It is a good machine, and he is a good son. What else. SON. He says: "You tell me our enemies have killed my uncle and my brother, beside wounding our father. I am very far away and can give no help whatever. It is a matter for great regret. Our enemies are now two lives to the good against us in the account. We must take our revenge quickly. The responsibility, I suppose, is altogether on the head of my youngest brother." FATHER. But I am still good for sitting-shots. MOTHER [_soothingly_]. Ah! But he means, to think over all the arrangements. Wounded men cannot think clearly till the fever is out of the wound. SON [_reading_]. "My youngest brother said he would enlist after me when the harvest was gathered. That is now out of the question. Tell him he must attend to the work in hand." (That is true, I cannot enlist now.) "Tell him not to wander about after the people who did the actual killing. They will probably have taken refuge on the Government side of the Border." (That is true, too. It is exactly what they did.) "Even up the account from the nearest household of our enemies. This will force the murderers for their honour's sake to return and attend to their proper business when--God willing--they can be added as a bonus. Take our revenge quickly." FATHER [_stroking beard_]. This is all wisdom. I have a man for a son. What else does he say, Akbar? SON. He says: "I have a letter from Kohat telling me that a certain man of a family that we know is coming out here with a draft in order to settle with me for an account which he says I opened."