The gifts from Assam were opened one at a time in front of Guru Gobind Singh Ji.
There was a gun that could fire five shots. The young king, Rattan Rai Ji, showed him how it worked.
There was a table for playing chess, and if you pressed it in the right place it did something clever, and that was shown too.
There were horses, and cloth, and jewellery, and other fine things besides.
And then, last of all, they brought in the elephant.
You remember the elephant. Black as night, with a white forehead and white lines running down to its feet. But it turned out that the elephant was not just there to be looked at. The young king had spent months having it taught.
Somebody handed it a lit torch, and the elephant took it in its trunk and waved it about in the dark, so that everybody's face lit up.
Then an arrow was shot away off across the ground, and the elephant went out, and found it, and brought it back.
Then somebody gave it a whisk, and it stood there fanning the air with it as solemnly as an old servant.
Guru Ji was delighted. He went up and stroked the elephant's head.
And then the elephant did the thing nobody had asked it to do.
It reached down with its trunk, and picked up Guru Ji's shoes, and carried them over, and set them down neatly in front of him.
Out of everything that elephant had been taught in Assam, that is the one that people still tell. It could have shown off all evening. What it wanted to do was fetch the shoes.
Guru Ji laughed and was pleased, and he gave the elephant a name. He called it Prasadi, which means a thing given as a blessing.
Then he said the elephant was to live in the elephant yard, and that one person was to be given the job of looking after it and nothing else, and that this person was to learn how to do it properly from the young king himself, because nobody else knew this elephant's ways.
After that Guru Ji sat down, and all the gifts were carried away, and the hall went quiet, and he sat for a long while with his eyes closed and the Lord's name going round inside him.
When he opened them he said: King Rattan Rai Ji. You are on this earth because my father blessed your family. You are a Sikh of this house.
And then began five months that the young king never forgot.
Guru Ji took him hunting, and took him along nearly everywhere. Out in the forest they would have Prasadi show its tricks all over again for whoever was there. They went down to the river Satluj and swam and played in the water. Some days they walked. Some days they rode out together on Prasadi, the two of them, both young, both fond of horses and weapons and the open air.
Five months is not very long. But if you have waited your whole childhood to meet somebody, five months of riding about with him is a great deal.
Then the day came when they had to go home.
His mother and he went first to Guru Ji's house to pay their respects there. Then they came and put their heads at Guru Ji's feet with tears running down their faces, and this time they had nothing left to give. The horses were given. The elephant was given. So they gave the last thing, which was themselves.
They went to the durbar once more before the road, because they could not help it, and Guru Gobind Singh Ji held the young king and held him again, and would not let him go quickly.
Gifts were brought for them to take. And Guru Ji put into the young king's hands one book of the Lord's hymns, to carry all the way back to Assam.