"You two chaps have come off with hardly a scratch," said Raynier--"and yet you were just as much in the thick of it as I was." "So we were. But I say, Raynier, I believe it's a judgment on a staid old buffer like you for `mafeking' around with a lot of lively sparks like us. Ha--ha--that wasn't bad, I say, don't-cher-know. `Mafeking!' See it? Ah--ha--ha!" "Oh, go away. It's an outrage. At how many people's hands have you courted destruction by firing that on them this morning?" "Not many. But it's awfully good, eh, old sportsman? Why I invented it." "Then you deserve death," returned Raynier. "Oh, Grice, take him away, and drown him, will you; but stay--let him have his `peg' first--since here it comes." "Anyone know what became of that interesting stranger?" went on Raynier, after the necessary pause. "The Indian Johnny? Not much. We all got mixed up in the mob, and what with all the `bokos' that were hit, and the claret flying, and then the bobbies rushing the lot, none of us knew what had happened to anyone else until we all found ourselves snug and jolly at the Peculiar." And then followed an animated account of wounds and casualties received and doughty deeds effected. "We thought you were taking care of the Indian Johnny, Raynier," concluded Grice, "and that was why you didn't turn up." "I wish I knew where to lay finger on the said Indian Johnny," was the rejoinder. "Why? Was he some big bug?" "I don't know. But he's got my stick--or had it." "Rather. And didn't he just lay about with it too. Looked as if he was quite accustomed to that sort of thing." "The worst of it is I rather value it," went on Raynier. "In fact I'd give a trifle to recover it. Given me, you understand." "Oh--ah--yes, I understand," said the other, with a would-be knowing wink. "Why not try the police stations?" suggested the self-styled creator of the above vile pun. "The darkey may have been run in with a lot more for creating a disturbance." "Or the pawnbrokers," said Grice--"for if it was captured by the enemy, why that honest fellow-countryman would lose no time in taking a bee-line for the nearest pawnshop with it. All that yelling must have been dry work." "But, I say, old chappie. What a juggins you were to give it him," supplemented the other, sapiently. "Oh, he didn't know how to use his fists, and the poor devil was absolutely defenceless. And a good `Penang lawyer' in a row of that kind is a precious deal better than nothing at all." "The darkey seemed to find it so," said he named Grice. "Why it might have been a sword the way he laid about with it. I bet that chap's good at single-stick. Wonder who he is. Some big Rajah perhaps. I say Raynier, old chap. You'll have some of his following finding you out directly, with no end of lakhs of rupees, as a slight mark of gratitude, and all that sort of thing. Eh?"