up his shirt-sleeves as if he were going to wash his hands.

"What's the gossoon about at all?" cried my master, taken aback by this
unexpected reply to his question.

"On'y going to smash you!" calmly replied the imperturbable Duck,
beginning to spar--"so come on, my lad!"

That Patrick would have joyfully accepted the invitation I have no
doubt, had not an accident at that moment befallen him.

A trolly coming up behind, took him off his feet. To recover himself,
he took a spring forward, and landed full on the top of the junior
ensign of the regiment, a mild youth with a very little voice, and for
the next minute the two were rolling, one on the top of the other, over
and over, along the wet deck, amid the laughter of everybody.

By the time Paddy had picked himself up, and helped the poor young
ensign to his feet, his ardour was sufficiently damped. He apologised
with as good grace as he could to his late victim, and made very humble
excuses to the sergeant in charge, who, fortunately for him, had
witnessed that the affair was an accident.

Duck Downie, however, with his coat off and his sleeves tucked up, still
awaited his man as if nothing had happened, and seemed surprised that
Paddy was not as eager as before for the fray. The latter, however,
quite sobered by this time, merely cried out in the hearing of
everybody,--

"Arrah! Downie, darlint, ye may put on your coat, because I forgive you
this onst; but, man dear, don't do it again!" and was thereby considered
by everybody to have had the best of the whole adventure.

Under such dignified circumstances did we set foot on Indian soil.

The reader will be surprised that I have never yet remembered that when
I last heard of him, Charlie, my first master, was in India. I did
remember it often and often--during the voyage and after landing. And
yet I quite despised myself for imagining (as I did) that the next white
face I saw would surely be his. India is a big place--a dreadfully big
place--and the chances of finding any one particular person there are
about as great as of discovering a needle in a haystack. He might have
left India long ago; he might have fallen in the massacres of the past
few months; he might be somewhere right across the continent. And so,
though I could not get rid of a vague sort of expectation, during the
first few days of my being in India, I always laughed at myself for a
simpleton for thinking such a chance possible.