Certainly the other boys could tell wonderful stories--stories of
princesses and fairies and demons--Sumpsi Din's were the best--that
made Sonny Sahib's blue eyes widen in the dark, when they all sat
together on a charpoy by the door of the hut, and the stars
glimmered through the tamarind-trees. A charpoy is a bed, and
everybody in Rubbulgurh puts one outside, for sociability, in the
evening. Not much of a bed, only four short rickety legs held
together with knotted string, but it answers very well.

Sonny Sahib didn't seem to know any stories--he could only tell the
old one about the fighting Abdul saw over and over again--but it
was the single thing they could do better than he did. On the
whole he began to prefer the society of Abdul's black and white
goats, which bore a strong resemblance to Abdul himself, by the
way, and had more of the spirit of adventure. It was the goat, for
example, that taught Sonny Sahib to walk on the extreme edge of the
housetop and not tumble over. In time they became great friends,
Sonny Sahib and the goat, and always, when it was not too hot, they
slept together.

Then two things happened. First, Abdul died, and Sonny Sahib
became acquainted with grief, both according to his own nature and
according to the law of Mahomed. Then, after he and Tooni had
mourned sincerely with very little to eat for nine days, there
clattered one day a horseman through the village at such a pace
that everybody ran out to see. And he was worth seeing, that
horseman, in a blue turban as big as a little tub, a yellow coat,
red trousers with gold lace on them, and long boots that stuck out
far on either side; and an embroidered saddle and a tasselled
bridle, and a pink-nosed white charger that stepped and pranced in