"They're elephants and I'm a soldier. The trouble with you is nerves,
my boy!"

There was brandy in the place that Tom Tripe knew of--brandy and
tobacco and a smell of elephants. Dick Blaine, who scarcely ever
touched strong liquor, having had intimate acquaintance with abuse
of it in Western mining camps, had to sit and endure the spectacle
of Tom's chief weakness, glass after glass of the fiery stuff descending
into a stomach long since rendered insatiable by soldiering on peppery
food in a climate that is no man's friend. He protested a dozen times.

"We may need our wits tonight, Tom. Suppose we both keep sober."

"Man alive, I've been doing this for years. Brandy and brains are the
same in my case. Keep me without it, and by bedtime I'm an invalid.
Give me all I want of it, and I'm a crafty soldier-man."

Dick Blaine refilled his pipe and watched for an opportunity. He had
heard that kind of argument before, and had conquered flood and fire
with the aid of the very men who used it, that being the gift (or whatever
you like to call it) that had made him independent while the others drew
monthly pay in envelopes.

It was a low oblong shed they sat in, with a wide door opening on a side
street within four hundred yards of Yasmini's palace gate. It was
furnished with a table, two chairs and a cot for Tom Tripe's special
use whenever the maharajah's business should happen to keep him
on night duty, his own proper quarters being nearly a mile away.
Alongside the shed was a very rough stable that would accommodate
a horse or two, and the back wall was a mere partition of mud brick,