"Morning, Mahommed Gunga. Take a seat, won't you?"

A camp-chair creaked under the descending Rajput's weight, and creaked
again as he remembered to settle himself less stiffly--less guiltily.

"I say, I'm going to ask you chaps to do me a favor. You don't mind
obliging me now and then, do you?"

The youngster leaned forward confidentially, one elbow on his knee, and
looked half-serious, as though what he had to ask were more important
than the ordinary.

"Sahib, there is nothing that we will not do."

"Ah! Then you won't mind my mentioning this, I'm sure. Next time you
want to kennel a tiger in my bedroom, d'you mind giving me notice in
advance? It's not the stink I mind, nor being waked up; it's the
deuced awful risk of hurting somebody. Besides--look how I spoilt
that tiger's mask! The skins I've always admired at home had been shot
where it didn't show so badly."

There was not even the symptom of a smile on Cunningham's face. He
looked straight into Mahommed Gunga's eyes, and spoke as one man
talking calm common sense to another. He raised his hand as the Rajput
began to stammer an apology.

"No. Don't apologize. If you'll forgive me for shooting your pet
tiger, I'll overlook the rest of it. If I'd known that you kept him in
there o' nights, I'd have chosen another room, that's all--some room
where I couldn't smell him, and where I shouldn't run the risk of