ninety-nine cases out of a hundred this would have happened. You
can see the principle working in any Indian Station. But this
particular case fell through because The Boy was sensitive and took
things seriously--as I may have said some seven times before. Of
course, we couldn't tell how his excesses struck him personally.
They were nothing very heart-breaking or above the average. He
might be crippled for life financially, and want a little nursing.
Still the memory of his performances would wither away in one hot
weather, and the shroff would help him to tide over the money
troubles. But he must have taken another view altogether and have
believed himself ruined beyond redemption. His Colonel talked to
him severely when the cold weather ended. That made him more
wretched than ever; and it was only an ordinary "Colonel's
wigging!"

What follows is a curious instance of the fashion in which we are
all linked together and made responsible for one another. THE
thing that kicked the beam in The Boy's mind was a remark that a
woman made when he was talking to her. There is no use in
repeating it, for it was only a cruel little sentence, rapped out
before thinking, that made him flush to the roots of his hair. He
kept himself to himself for three days, and then put in for two
days' leave to go shooting near a Canal Engineer's Rest House about
thirty miles out. He got his leave, and that night at Mess was
noisier and more offensive than ever. He said that he was "going
to shoot big game, and left at half-past ten o'clock in an ekka.
Partridge--which was the only thing a man could get near the Rest
House--is not big game; so every one laughed.

Next morning one of the Majors came in from short leave, and heard