You must go to his tomb one of these days and
inquire. Bukta will probably attend to that. He was asking me
before you came whether by any ill-luck you had already bagged
your tiger. If not, he is going to enter you under his own wing.
Of course, for you of all men it's imperative. You'll have a
first-class time with Bukta."
The Major was not wrong. Bukta kept an anxious eye on young Chinn
at drill, and it was noticeable that the first time the new officer
lifted up his voice in an order the whole line quivered. Even the
Colonel was taken aback, for it might have been Lionel Chinn
returned from Devonshire with a new lease of life. Bukta had
continued to develop his peculiar theory among his intimates, and
it was accepted as a matter of faith in the lines, since every
word and gesture on young Chinn's part so confirmed it.
The old man arranged early that his darling should wipe out the
reproach of not having shot a tiger; but he was not content to
take the first or any beast that happened to arrive. In his own
villages he dispensed the high, low, and middle justice, and when
his people - naked and fluttered - came to him with word of a
beast marked down, he bade them send spies to the kills and the
watering-places, that he might be sure the quarry was such an one
as suited the dignity of such a man.
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