When their panting ponies tried to pull up to recover
their wind a little, these rising hopes of the British Navy kicked
them with their heels into a gallop again, shouting strange
nautical oaths, and grinning from ear to ear with delight, until
finally four ponies lathered in sweat, in the last stages of
exhaustion, returned to Government House, and four dripping boys
alighted, declaring that they had had the time of their lives in
spite of a considerable loss of cuticle. It was the same at the
dances at Government House. The smart young subalterns simply
weren't in it; the midshipmen got all the best partners, and, to
do them justice, they could dance very well. They started with the
music and whirled their partners round the room at the top of
their speed, in the furnace temperature of Calcutta, without
drawing rein for one second until the band stopped, when a
dishevelled and utterly exhausted damsel collapsed limply into a
chair, whilst a deliquescent brass-buttoned youth, with a sodden
wisp of white linen and black silk round his neck to indicate the
spot where he had once possessed a collar and tie, endeavoured to
fan his partner into some semblance of coolness again.
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