"
"My dear Father, it is Mother's doing. It has been her plan, ever
since she heard that you were wrecked, that we should come out here to
find you, and she has had me regularly trained for it. I had masters
for fencing and gymnastics, we always talked Hindustani when we were
together, and she has encouraged me to fight with other boys, so that
I should get strong and quick."
That evening by the fire, Dick told his father the whole story of his
life since he had been in India.
"Well, my lad, you have done wonders," his father said, when he had
finished; "and if I had as much enterprise and go as you have, I
should have been out of this place years ago. But in the first place,
I was very slow in picking up their lingo. You see, until within the
last three or four years, there have always been other Englishmen with
me. Of course we talked together, and as most of them were able to
speak a little of the lingo, there was no occasion for me to learn it.
Then I was always, from the first, when they saw that I was handy at
all sorts of things, kept at odd jobs, and so got less chance of
picking up the language than those who were employed in drilling, or
who had nothing to do but talk to their guards.
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