It was all in the day's work.
Then I headed for the Great Indian Desert upon the proper date, as
I had promised, and the night Mail set me down at Marwar
Junction, where a funny little, happy-go-lucky, native-managed
railway runs to Jodhpore. The Bombay Mail from Delhi makes a
short halt at Marwar. She arrived just as I got in, and I had just
time to hurry to her platform and go down the carriages. There was
only one Second-class on the train. I slipped the window and
looked down upon a flaming-red beard, half covered by a railway-rug.
That was my man, fast asleep, and I dug him gently in the ribs.
He woke with a grunt, and I saw his face in the light of the lamps.
It was a great and shining face.
"Tickets again?" said he.
"No," said I. "I am to tell you that he is gone South for the week.
He has gone South for the week!"
The train had begun to move out. The red man rubbed his eyes.
"He has gone South for the week," he repeated. "Now that's just
like his impidence. Did he say that I was to give you anything?
'Cause I won't."
"He didn't," I said, and dropped away, and watched the red lights
die out in the dark.
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