Shopkeepers also took advantage of the unsettled nature of affairs to give short weight, and in other ways increase their profits, no doubt thinking it best to make all they could before the disturbances, which all expected, set in. One shopkeeper took half the matches from each box in the packets of twelve, and sold them in this half-filled condition, in order to reap a double profit. One of these packets being sold to one of my servants, and the fraud detected, the soldier who accompanied the servant knocked two of the shopkeeper’s teeth out, whereupon the shopkeeper made complaint to the Kotwal, who reported the case to the soldier’s commanding officer, and the affair ended in my being several rupees out of pocket in obtaining the soldier’s acquittal. Bribery and corruption, of course; but I could not let the man suffer for his over-zealous protection of my interests. He was a simple Afghan soldier, and such men are usually very straightforward, and only think of carrying out the orders given them. I once sent a soldier of this description to tell one of the workshop foremen to come to my office, and on the foreman impudently sending back word to the effect that he was busy and would come later, I told the soldier to bring him by the beard if he did not come on being told to do so. The soldier went off, and presently returned dragging the man by the beard, the two together making sufficient noise on their progress to attract a crowd of workmen, who followed to see the end of the matter. Although I had not intended my instructions to be literally carried out, the effect on the rest of the workmen was that I had no occasion to send twice for another man.