(And Augustus Grabble; General Murger; Sergeant-Major Lawrence-Smith; Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Gosling-Green; Mr. Horace Faggit; as well as a reformed JOHN ROBIN ROSS-ELLISON.)

SECTION 1. MR. GROBBLE.

There was something very maidenly about the appearance of Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble. One could not imagine him doing anything unfashionable, perspiry, rough or rude; nor could one possibly imagine him doing anything ruthless, fine, terrible, strong or difficult.

One expected his hose to be of the same tint as his shirt and handkerchief, his dress-trousers to be braided, his tie to be delicate and beautiful, his dainty shoes to be laced with black silk ribbon, but one would never expect him to go tiger-shooting, to ride a gay and giddy young horse, to box, or to do his own cooking and washing in the desert or jungle.

Augustus had been at College during that bright brief period of the attempted apotheosis of the dirty-minded little Decadent whose stock in trade was a few Aubrey Beardsley drawings, a widow’s-cruse-like bottle of Green Chartreuse, an Oscar Wilde book, some dubious blue china, some floppy ties, an assortment of second-hand epigrams, scent and scented tobacco, a nil admirari attitude and long weird hair.

Augustus had become a Decadent a silly harmless conventionally-unconventional Decadent. But, as Carey, a contemporary Rugger blood, coarsely remarked, he hadn’t the innards to go far wrong.

It was part of his cheap and childish ritual as a Decadent to draw the curtains after breakfast, light candles, place the flask of Green Chartreuse and a liqueur-glass on the table, drop one drip of the liquid into the glass, burn a stinking pastille of incense, place a Birmingham “god” or an opening lily before him, ruffle his hair, and sprawl on the sofa with a wicked French novel he could not read hoping for visitors and an audience.

If any fellow dropped in and, very naturally, exclaimed, “What the devil are you doing?” he would reply:

“Wha’? Oh, sunligh’? Very vulgar thing sunligh’. Art is always superior to Nature. You love the garish day being a gross Philistine, wha’? Now I only live at night. Glorious wicked nigh’. So I make my own nigh’. Wha’? Have some Green Chartreuse only drink fit for a Hedonist. I drink its colour and I taste its glorious greenness. Ichor and Nectar of Helicon and the Pierian Spring. I loved a Wooman once, with eyes of just that glowing glorious green and a soul of ruby red. I called her my Emerald-eyed, Ruby-souled Devil, and we drank together deep draughts of the red red Wine of Life ”

Sometimes the visitor would say: “Look here, Grobb, you ought to be in the Zoo, you know. There’s a lot there like you, all in one big cage,” or similar words of disapproval.

Sometimes a young fresher would be impressed, especially if he had been brought up by Aunts in a Vicarage, and would also become a Decadent.

During vac. the Decadents would sometimes meet in Town, and See Life a singularly uninteresting and unattractive side of Life (much more like Death), and the better men among them better because of a little sincerity and pluck would achieve a petty and rather sordid “adventure” perhaps.

Augustus had no head for Mathematics and no gift for Languages, while his Classics had always been a trifle more than shaky. History bored him so he read Moral Philosophy.

There is a somewhat dull market for second-hand and third-class Moral Philosophy in England, so Augustus took his to India. In the first college that he adorned his classes rapidly dwindled to nothing, and the College Board dispensed with the services of Augustus, who passed on to another College in another Province, leaving behind him an odour of moral dirtiness, debt, and decadence. Quite genuine decadence this time, with nothing picturesque about it, involving doctors’ bills, alimony, and other the fine crops of wild-oat sowing.

At Gungapur he determined to “settle down,” to “turn over a new leaf,” and laid a good space of paving-stone upon his road to reward.

He gave up the morning nip, docked the number of cocktails, went to bed before two, took a little gentle exercise, met Mrs. Pat Dearman and (like Mr. Robin Ross-Ellison, General Miltiades Murger and many another) succumbed at once.

Mrs. Pat Dearman had come to India (as Miss Cleopatra Diamond Brighte) to see her brother, Dickie Honor Brighte, at Gungapur, and much interested to see, also, a Mr. Dearman whom, in his letters to her, Dickie had described as “a jolly old buster, simply full of money, and fairly spoiling for a wife to help him blew it in.” She had not only seen him but had, as she wrote to acidulous Auntie Priscilla at the Vicarage, “actually married him after a week’s acquaintance fancy! the last thing in the world she had ever supposed ... etc.” (Auntie Priscilla had smiled in her peculiarly unpleasant way as the artless letter enlarged upon the strangeness of her ingenuous niece’s marrying the rich man about whom her innocent-minded brother had written so much.)

Having thoroughly enjoyed a most expensive and lavish honeymoon, Mrs. Pat Dearman had settled down to make her good husband happy, to have a good time and to do any amount of Good to other people especially to young men who have so many temptations, are so thoughtless, and who easily become the prey of such dreadful people and such dreadful habits.

Now it is to be borne in mind that Mrs. Dearman’s Good Time was marred to some extent by her unreasoning dislike of all Indians, a dislike which grew into a loathing hatred, born and bred of her ignorance of the language, customs, beliefs and ideals of the people among whom she lived, and from whom her husband’s great wealth sprang.

To Augustus fresh from very gilded gold, painted lilies and highly perfumed violets she seemed a vision of delight, a blessed damozel, a living Salvation.

"Incedit dea aperta," he murmured to himself, and wondered whether he had got the quotation right. Being a weak young gentleman, he straightway yearned to lead a Beautiful Life so as to be worthy to live in the same world with her, and did it for a little while. He became a teetotaller, he went to bed at ten and rose at five going forth into the innocent pure morning and hugging his new Goodness to his soul as he composed odes and sonnets to Mrs. Pat Dearman. So far so excellent but in Augustus was no depth of earth, and speedily he withered away. And his reformation was a house built upon sand, for, even at its pinnacle, it was compatible with the practising of sweet and pure expressions before the glass, the giving of much time to the discovery of the really most successful location of the parting in his long hair, the intentional entangling of his fingers with those of the plump and pretty young lady (very brunette) in Rightaway & Mademore’s, what time she handed him “ties to match his eyes,” as he requested.

It was really only a change of pose. The attitude now was: “I, young as you behold me, am old and weary of sin. I have Passed through the Fires. Give me beauty and give me peace. I have done with the World and its Dead Sea Fruit. There is no God but Beauty, and Woman is its Prophet.” And he improved in appearance, grew thinner, shook off a veritable Old Man of the Sea in the shape of a persistent pimple which went ill with the Higher Aestheticism, and achieved great things in delicate socks, sweet shirts, dream ties, a thumb ring and really pretty shoes.

In the presence of Mrs. Pat Dearman he looked sad, smouldering, despairing and Fighting-against-his-Lower-Self, when not looking Young-but-Hopelessly-Depraved-though-Yearning-for-Better-Things. And he flung out quick epigrams, sighed heavily, talked brilliantly and wildly, and then suppressed a groan. Sometimes the pose of, “Dear Lady, I could kiss the hem of your garment for taking an interest in me and my past but it is too lurid for me to speak of it, or for you to understand it if I did,” would appear for a moment, and sometimes that of, “Oh, help me or my soul must drown. Ah, leave me not. If I have sinned I have suffered, and in your hands lie my Heaven and my Hell.” Such shocking words were never uttered of course but there are few things more real than an atmosphere, and Augustus Clarence could always get his atmosphere all right.

And Mrs. Pat Dearman (who had come almost straight from a vicarage, a vicar papa and a vicarish aunt, to an elderly, uxorious husband and untrammelled freedom, and knew as much of the World as a little bunny rabbit whom its mother has not brought yet out into the warren for its first season), was mightily intrigued.

She felt motherly to the poor boy at first, being only two years his junior; then sisterly; and, later, very friendly indeed.

Let it be clearly understood that Mrs. Pat Dearman was a thoroughly good, pure-minded woman, incapable of deceiving her husband, and both innocent and ignorant to a remarkable degree. She was the product of an unnatural, specialized atmosphere of moral supermanity, the secluded life, and the careful suppression of healthy, natural instincts. In justice to Augustus Clarence also it must be stated that the impulse to decency, though transient, was genuine as far as it went, and that he would as soon have thought of cutting his long beautiful hair as of thinking evil in connection with Mrs. Pat Dearman.

Yes, Mrs. Pat Dearman was mightily intrigued and quickly came to the conclusion that it was her plain and bounden duty to “save” the poor, dear boy though from what she was not quite clear. He was evidently unhappy and obviously striving-to-be-Good and he had such beautiful eyes, dressed so tastefully, and looked at one with such a respectful devotion and regard, that, really well, it added a tremendous savour to life. Also he should be protected from the horrid flirting Mrs. Bickker who simply lived to collect scalps.

And so the friendship grew and ripened quickly as is possible only in India. The evil-minded talked evil and saw harm where none existed, proclaiming themselves for what they were, and injuring none but themselves. (Sad to say, these were women, with one or two exceptions in favour of men like the Hatter who perhaps might be called “old women of the male sex,” save that the expression is a vile libel upon the sex that still contains the best of us.) Decent people expressed the belief that it would do Augustus a lot of good much-needed good; and the crystallized male opinion was that the poisonous little beast was uncommon lucky, but Mrs. Pat Dearman would find him out sooner or later.

As for Mr. (or Colonel) Dearman, that lovable simple soul was grateful to Augustus for existing as long as his existence gave Mrs. Dearman any pleasure. If the redemption of Augustus interested her, let Augustus be redeemed. He believed that the world neither held, nor had held, his wife’s equal in character and nobility of mind. He worshipped an image of his own creation in the shape of Cleopatra Dearman, and the image he had conceived was a credit to the single-minded, simple-hearted gentleman.

Naturally he did not admire Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble (learned in millinery; competent, as modes varied, to discuss harem, hobble, pannier, directoire, slit, or lamp-shade skirts, berthes, butterfly-motif embroideries, rucked ninon sleeves, chiffon tunics, and similar mysteries of the latest fashion-plates, with a lady undecided).

Long-haired men put Dearman off, and he could not connect the virile virtues with large bows, velvet coats, scent, manicure, mannerisms and meandering.

But if Augustus gave his wife any pleasure why Augustus had not lived wholly in vain. His attitude to Augustus was much that of his attitude to his wife’s chocolates, fondants, and crystallized violets “Not absolutely nourishing and beneficial for you, Dearest; but harmless, and I’ll bring you a ton with pleasure”.

Personally he’d as soon go about with his wife’s fat French poodle as with Augustus, but so long as either amused her let the queer things flourish.

Among the nasty-minded old women who “talked” was the Mad Hatter.

“Shameful thing the way that Dearman woman throws dust in her husband’s eyes!” said he, while sipping his third Elsie May at the club bar. “He should divorce her. I would, to-morrow, if I were burdened with her.”

A knee took him in the small of the back with unnecessary violence and he spun round to demand instant apology from the clumsy....

He found himself face to face with one John Robin Ross-Ellison newly come to Gungapur, a gentleman of independent means but supposed to be connected with the Political Department or the Secret Service or something, who stared him in the eyes without speaking while he poised a long drink as though wondering whether it were worth while wasting good liquor on the face of such a thing as the Hatter.

“You’ll come with me and clear the dust from Dearman’s eyes at once,” said he at last. “Made your will all right?”

The Hatter publicly apologised, then and there, and explained that he had, for once in his life, taken a third drink and didn’t know what he was saying.

“If your third drink brings out the real man, I should recommend you to stick to two, Bonnett,” said the young man, and went away to cogitate.

Should he speak to Dearman? No. He didn’t want to see so good a chap hanged for a thing like the Bonnett. Should he go and slap Augustus Grobble hard and make him leave the station somehow? No. Sure to be a scandal. You can no more stop a scandal than a locust-cloud or a fog. The best way to increase it is to notice it. What a horrid thing is a scandal-monger exhaling poison. It publishes the fact that it is poisonous, of course but the gas is not enjoyable.

Well, God help anybody Dearman might happen to hear on the subject! Happily Mr. (or Colonel) Dearman heard nothing, for he was a quiet, slow, jolly, red-haired man, and the wrath of a slow, quiet, red-haired man, once roused, is apt to be a rather dangerous thing. Also Mr. Dearman was singularly elephantine in the blundering crushing directness of his methods, and his idea of enough might well seem more than a feast to some.

And Mr. Dearman suffered Augustus gladly, usually finding him present at tea, frequently at dinner, and invariably in attendance at dances and functions.

Augustus was happy and Good for Augustus. He dallied, he adored, he basked. For a time he felt how much better, finer, more enjoyable, more beautiful, was this life of innocent communion with a pure soul pure, if just a little insipid, after the real spankers he had hitherto affected.

He was being saved from himself, reformed, helped, and all the rest of it. And when privileged to bring her pen, her fan, her book, her cushion, he always kissed the object with an appearance of wishing to be unseen in the act. It was a splendid change from the Lurid Life and the mean adventure. Piquant.

Unstable as water he could not excel nor endure, however, even in dalliance; nor persevere even when adopted as the fidus Achates of a good and beautiful woman the poor little weather-cock. He was essentially weak, and weakness is worse than wickedness. There is hope for the strong bad man. He may become a strong good one. Your weak man can never be that.

There came a lady to the Great Eastern Hotel where Augustus lived. Her husband’s name, curiously enough, was Harris, and wags referred to him as the Mr. Harris, because he had never been seen and like Betsey Prig, they “didn’t believe there was no sich person”. And beyond doubt she was a spanker.

Augustus would sit and eye her at meals and his face would grow a little less attractive. He would think of her while he took tea with Mrs. and Mr. Dearman, assuring himself that she was certainly a stepper, a stunner, and, very probably, thrilling thought a wrong ’un.

Without the very slightest difficulty he obtained an introduction and, shortly afterwards, decided that he was a man of the world, a Decadent, a wise Hedonist who took the sweets of every day and hoped for more to-morrow.

Who but a fool or a silly greenhorn lets slip the chances of enjoyment, and loses opportunities of experiences? There was nothing in the world, they said, to compare with War and Love. Those who wanted it were welcome to the fighting part, he would be content with the loving rôle. He would be a Dog and go on breaking hearts and collecting trophies. What a milk-and-water young ass he had been, hanging about round good, silly, little Mrs. Dearman, denying himself champagne at dinner-parties, earning opprobrium as a teetotaller, going to bed early like a bread-and-butter flapper, and generally losing all the joys of Life! Been behaving like a backfisch. He read his Swinburne again, and unearthed from the bottom of a trunk some books that dealt with the decadent’s joys, poets of the Flesh, and prosers of the Devil, in his many weary forms.

Also he redoubled his protestations (of undying, hopeless, respectful devotion and regard) to Mrs. Dearman, until she, being a woman, therefore suspected something and became uneasy.

One afternoon he failed to put in an appearance at tea-time, though expected. He wrote that he had had a headache. Perhaps it was true, but, if so, it had been borne in the boudoir of the fair spanker whose husband may or may not have been named Harris.

As his absences from the society of Mrs. Dearman increased in frequency, his protestations of undying gratitude and regard for her increased in fervour.

Mrs. Dearman grew more uneasy and a little unhappy.

Could she be losing her influence for Good over the poor weak boy? Could it be horrible thought that he was falling into the hands of some nasty woman who would flirt with him, let him smoke too many cigarettes, drink cocktails, and sit up late? Was he going to relapse and slip back into that state of wickedness of some kind, that she vaguely understood him to have been guilty of in the unhappy past when he had possessed no guardian angel to keep his life pure, happy and sweet, as he now declared it to be?

“Where’s your young friend got to lately?” inquired her husband one day.

“I don’t know, John,” she replied, “he’s always missing appointments nowadays,” and there was a pathetic droop about the childish mouth.

“Haven’t quarrelled with him, or anything, have you, Pat?”

“No, John dear. It would break his heart if I were unkind to him or it would have used to. I mean it used to have would. Oh, you know what I mean. Once it would have. No, I have not been unkind to him it’s rather the other way about, I think!”

Rather the other way about! The little affected pimp unkind to Mrs. Dearman! Mr. (or Colonel) Dearman made no remark aloud.

Augustus came to tea next day and his hostess made much of him. His host eyed him queerly. Very.

Augustus felt uncomfortable. Good Heavens! Was Dearman jealous? The man was not going to cut up jealous at this time of day, surely! Not after giving him the run of the house for months, and allowing him to take his wife everywhere nay, encouraging him in every way. Absurd idea!

Beastly disturbing idea though Dearman jealous, and on your track! A rather direct and uncompromising person, red-haired too. But the man was absolutely fair and just, and he’d never do such a thing as to let a fellow be his wife’s great pal, treat him as one of the family for ages, and then suddenly round on him as though he were up to something. No. Especially when he was, if anything, cooling off a bit.

“He was always most cordial such a kind chap, when I was living in his wife’s pocket almost,” reflected Augustus, “and he wouldn’t go and turn jealous just when the thing was slacking off a bit.”

But there was no doubt that Dearman was eyeing him queerly....

“Shall we go on the river to-morrow night, Gussie?” said Mrs. Dearman, “or have a round of golf, or what?”

“Let’s see how we feel to-morrow,” replied Augustus, who had other schemes in view. “Sufficient unto the day is the joy thereof,” and he escorted Mrs. Dearman to the Gymkhana, found her some nice, ladies’ pictorials, said, “I’ll be back in a minute or two,” and went in search of Mrs. “Harris”.

“Well,” said that lady, “been a good little boy and eaten your bread and butter nicely? Have a Lyddite cocktail to take the taste away. So will I.” ...

“Don’t forget to book the big punt,” said the Siren an hour or so later. “I’ll be ready for you about five.”

Augustus wrote one of his charming little notes on his charming little note-paper that evening.

“KIND AND GRACIOUS LADYE,

“Pity me. Pity and love me. To-morrow the sun will not shine for your slave, for he will not see it. I am unable to come over in the evening. I stand ’twixt love and duty, and know you would counsel duty. Would the College and all its works were beneath the ocean wave! Think of me just once and I shall survive till the day after. Oh, that I could think your disappointment were but one thousandth part of mine. I live but for Thursday.

“Ever your most devoted loving slave,

“GUSSIE.”

Mrs. Dearman wept one small tear, for she had doubted his manner when he had evaded making the appointment, and was suspicious. Mr. Dearman entered and noted the one small tear ere it trickled off her dainty little nose.

She showed him the note.

Mr. (or Colonel) Dearman thought much. What he said was “Hm!”

“I suppose he has got to invigilate at some horrid examination or something,” she said, but she did not really suppose anything of the kind. Even to her husband she could not admit the growing dreadful fear that the brand she had plucked from the burning was slipping from her hand falling back into the flames.

At a dinner-party that night a woman whom she hated, and wrote down an evil-minded scandal-monger and inventor and disseminator of lies, suddenly said to her, “Who is this Mrs. Harris, my dear?”

“How should I know?” replied Mrs. Dearman.

“Oh, I thought your young friend Mr. Grobble might have told you he seems to know her very well,” answered the woman sweetly.

That night Mr. Dearman heard his wife sobbing in bed. Going to her he asked what was the matter, and produced eau-de-Cologne, phenacetin, smelling-salts and sympathy.

She said that nothing at all was the matter and he went away and pondered. Next day he asked her if he could row her on the river as he wanted some exercise, and Augustus was not available to take her for a drive or anything.

“I should love it, John dear,” she said. “You row like an ox,” and John, who had been reckoned an uncommon useful stroke, felt that a compliment was intended if not quite materialized.

Mrs. Pat Dearman enjoyed the upstream trip, and, watching her husband drive the heavy boat against wind and current with graceful ease, contrasted him with the puny, if charming, Augustus to the latter’s detriment. He was so safe, so sound, so strong, reliable and true. But then he never needed any protection, care and help. It was impossible to “mother” John. He loved her devotedly and beautifully but one couldn’t pretend he leaned on her for moral help. Now Augustus did need her or he had done so and she did so love to be needed. Had done so? No she would put the thought away. He needed her as much as ever and loved her as devotedly and honourably.... The boat was turned back at the weir and, half an hour later, reached the Club wharf.

“I want to go straight home without changing, Pat; do you mind? I’ll drop you at the Gymkhana if you don’t want to get home so early,” said Dearman, as he helped his wife out.

“Won’t you change and have a drink first, John?” she replied. “You must be thirsty.”

“No. I want to go along now, if you don’t mind.”

He did want to badly. For, rowing up, he had seen something which his wife, facing the other way, could not see.

Under an over-hanging bush was a punt, and in the punt were Augustus and the lady known as Mrs. Harris.

The bush met the bank at the side toward his wife, but at the other side, facing Dearman, there was an open space and so he had seen and she had not. Returning, he had drawn her attention to something on the opposite bank. This had been unnecessary, however, as Augustus had effected a change of venue without delay. And now he did not want his wife to witness the return of the couple and learn of the duplicity of her snatched Brand.

(He’d “brand” him anon!)

Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble sat in the long cane chair in his sitting-room, a glass beside him, a cigarette between his lips, a fleshly poet in his hand, and a reminiscent smile upon his flushed face.

She undoubtedly was a spanker. Knew precisely how many beans make five. A woman of the world, that. Been about. Knew things. Sort of woman one could tell a good story to and get one back. Life! Life! Knew it up and down, in and out. Damn reformation, teetotality, the earnest, and the strenuous. Good women were unmitigated bores, and he.... A sharp knock at the door.

“Kon hai?" he called. “Under ao."

The door opened and large Mr. Dearman walked in. He bore a nasty-looking malacca cane in his hand somewhat ostentatiously.

“Hullo, Dearman!” said Augustus after a decidedly startled and anxious look. “What is it? Sit down. I’m just back from College. Have a drink?”

Large Mr. Dearman considered these things seriatim.

“I will sit down as I want a talk with you. You are a liar in the matter of just being back from College. I will not have a drink.” He then lapsed into silence and looked at Augustus very straight and very queerly, while bending the nasty malacca suggestively. The knees of Augustus smote together.

Good God! It had come at last! The thrashing he had so often earned was at hand. What should he do? What should he do!

Dearman thought the young man was about to faint.

“Fine malacca that, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Ye-yes!”

“Swishy, supple, tough.”

“Ye-yes!” (How could the brute be such a fool as to be jealous now now when it was all cooling off and coming to an end?)

“Grand stick to thrash a naughty boy with, what?”

“Ye-yes! Dearman, I swear before God that there is nothing between me and ”

“Shut up, you infernal God-forsaken cub, or I shall have to whip you. I ”

“Dearman, if you are jealous of me ”

“Better be quiet and listen, or I shall get cross, and you’ll get hurt.... You have given us the pleasure of a great deal of your company this year, and I have come to ask you ”

“Dearman, I have not been so much lately, and I ”

“That’s what I complain of, my young friend.”

“What?”

“That’s what I complain of! I have come to protest against your making yourself almost necessary to me, in a sense, and then er deserting me, in a sense.”

“You are mocking me, Dearman. If you wish to take advantage of my being half your size and strength to assault me, you ”

“Not a bit of it, my dear Augustus. I am in most deadly earnest, as you’ll find if you are contumacious when I make my little proposition. What I say is this. I have grown to take an interest in you, Augustus. I have been very kind to you and tried to make a better man of you. I have been a sort of mother to you, and you have sworn devotion and gratitude to me. I have reformed you somewhat, and you have admitted to me that I have made another man of you, Augustus, and that you love me for it, you love me with a deep Platonic love, my Augustus, and don’t you forget it.”

“I admit that your wife ”

“Don’t you mention my wife, Augustus, or you and I and that malacca will have a period of great activity. I was saying that I am disappointed in you, Augustus, and truly grieved to find you so shallow and false. I asked you to take me on the river to-night and you lied to me and took a very different type of er person. Such meanness and ingratitude fairly get me, Augustus. Now I never asked you to run after me and come and swear I had saved your dirty little soul alive, but since you did it, Augustus, and I have come to take a deep interest in saving the thing why, you’ve got to stick it, Augustus and if you don’t why, then I’ll make you, my dear.”

“Dearman, your wife has been the noblest friend ”

“Will you come off it, Augustus? I don’t want to be cruel. Now look here. I have got accustomed to having you about the house and employing you in those funny little ways in which you are a useful little animal. I am under no delusion as to the value of that Soul of yours but, such as it is, I am determined to save it. So just you bring it round to tea to-morrow, as usual; and don’t you ever be absent again without my permission. You began the game and I’ll end it when I think fit. Grand malacca that.”

“Dearman, I will always ”

“’Course you will. See you at tea to-morrow, Gussie. If ever my wife hears of this I’ll kill you painfully. Bye-Bye.”

Augustus was present at tea next day, and, thenceforth, so regular was he that Mrs. Dearman found, first, that she had been very foolish in thinking that her Brand was slipping back into the fire and, later, that Gussie was a bore and a nuisance.

One day he said in the presence of John:

“I can’t keep that golf engagement on Saturday, dear lady, I have to attend a meeting of the Professors, Principal and College Board”.

“Have you seen my malacca cane, Pat,” said Dearman. “I want it.”

“But I really have!” said Augustus, springing up.

“Of course you have,” replied Dearman. “What do you mean?”

“John dear,” remarked Mrs. Dearman one day, “I wish you could give Gussie a hint not to come quite so often. I have given him some very broad ones during the last few months, but he won’t take them. He would from you, I expect.”

“Tired of the little bounder, Pat?”

“Oh, sick and tired. He bores me to tears. I wish he were in Government Service and could be transferred. A Government man’s always transferred as soon as he has settled to his job. I can’t forbid him the house, very well, but I wish he’d realize how weary I am of his poses and new socks.”

Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble sat in the long cane chair in his sitting-room, a look of rebellious discontent upon his face. What could he do? Better chuck his job and clear out! The strain was getting awful. What a relentless, watchful brute Dearman was! To him entered that gentleman after gently tapping at the chamber door.

“Gussie,” said he, “I have come to say that I think you weary me. I don’t want you to come and play with me any more. But be a nice good boy and do me credit. I have brought you this malacca as a present and a memento. I have another, Gussie, and am going to watch you, so be a real credit to me.”

And Gussie was.

So once again a good woman redeemed a bad man but a trifle indirectly perhaps.

Then came General Miltiades Murger and Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison to be saved.

During intervals in the salvation process, Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison vainly endeavoured to induce Mr. Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble to lend his countenance, as well as the rest of his person, to the European Company of the Gungapur Fusilier Volunteer Corps which it was the earnest ambition of Ross-Ellison to raise and train and consolidate into a real and genuine defence organization, with a maxim-gun, a motor-cycle and car section, and a mounted troop, and with, above all, a living and sturdy esprit-de-corps. Such a Company appeared to him to be the one and only hope of regeneration for the ludicrous corps which Colonel Dearman commanded, and to change the metaphor, the sole possible means of leavening the lump by its example of high standards and high achievement.

To Augustus, however, as to many other Englishmen, the idea was merely ridiculous and its parent simply absurd.

The day dawned when Augustus, like the said many other Englishmen, changed his mind. In his, and their defence, it may be urged that they knew nothing of the activities of a very retiring but persevering gentleman, known to his familiars as Ilderim the Weeper, and that they had grown up in the belief that all England’s fighting and defence can be done by a few underpaid, unconsidered, and very vulgar hirelings.

Perish the thought that Augustus and his like should ever be expected to do the dirty work of defending themselves, their wives, children, homes and honour.

SECTION 2. GENERAL MURGER.

In a temporary Grand Stand of matchboarding and canvas tout Gungapur greeted Mrs. Pat Dearman, who was quite At Home, ranged itself, and critically inspected the horses, or the frocks, of its friends, according to its sex.

Around the great ring on to which the Grand Stand looked, Arab, Pathan, and other heathen raged furiously together and imagined many vain things. Among them unobtrusively moved a Somali who listened carefully to conversations, noted speakers, and appeared to be collecting impressions as to the state of public opinion and of private opinion. Particularly he sought opportunities of hearing reference to the whereabouts and doings of one Ilderim the Weeper. In the ring were a course of stiff jumps, lesser rings, the judges’ office, a kind of watch-tower from which a strenuous fiend with a megaphone bawled things that no living soul could understand, and a number of most horsily-arrayed gentlemen, whose individual status varied from General and cavalry-colonel to rough rider, troop sergeant-major and stud groom.

I regret to add that there was also a Lady, that she was garbed for riding in the style affected by mere man, and that she swaggered loud-voiced, horsey, slapping a boot.

Let men thank the good God for womanly women while such be and appreciate them.

Behind the Grand Stand were massed the motor-cars and carriages of Society, as well as the Steward of the Gungapur Club, who there spent a busy afternoon in eating ices and drinking Cup while his myrmidons hurried around, washed glasses, squeezed lemons, boiled water and dropped things. Anon he drank ices and ate Cup (with a spoon) and was taken deviously back to his little bungalow behind the Club by the Head Bootlaire Saheb (or butler) who loved and admired him.

Beyond the big ring ran the river, full with the summer rains, giving a false appearance of doing much to cool the air and render the afternoon suitable to the stiff collars and “Europe” garments of the once sterner sex.

A glorious sea-breeze did what the river pretended to do. Beneath the shade of a clump of palms, scores of more and less valuable horses stamped, tossed heads, whisked tails and possibly wondered why God made flies, while an equal number of syces squatted, smoked pungent bidis, and told lies.

Outside a tent, near by, sat a pimply youth at a table bearing boxes of be-ribboned labels, number-inscribed, official, levelling.

These numbers corresponded with those attached to the names of the horses in the programme of events, and riders must tie one round each arm ere bringing a horse up for judgment when called on.

Certain wretched carping critics alleged that this arrangement was to prevent the possibility of error on the part of the Judges, who, otherwise, would never know whether a horse belonged to a General or a Subaltern, to a Member of Council or an Assistant Collector, to a Head of a Department or a wretched underling in short to a personage or a person.

You find this type of doubter everywhere and especially in India where official rank is but the guinea stamp and gold is brass without it.

Great, in the Grand Stand, was General Miltiades Murger. Beside Mrs. Dearman, most charming of hostesses, he sate, in the stage of avuncular affection, and told her that if the Judges knew their business his hunter would win the Hunter-Class first prize and be “Best Horse in the Show” too.

As to his charger, his hack, his trapper, his suitable-for-polo ponies, his carriage-horses he did not worry; they might or might not “do something,” but his big and beautiful hunter well, he hoped the Judges knew their business, that was all.

“Are you going to show him in the ring yourself, General?” asked Mrs. Dearman.

“And leave your side?” replied the great man in manner most avuncular and with little reassuring pats upon the lady’s hand. “No, indeed. I am going to remain with you and watch Rissaldar-Major Shere Singh ride him for me. Finest horseman in India. Good as myself. Yes, I hope the Judges for Class XIX know their business. I imported that horse from Home and he cost me over six thousand rupees.”

Meanwhile, it may be mentioned, evil passions surged in the soul of Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison as he watched the General, and witnessed his avuncular pattings and confidential whisperings. Mr. Ross-Ellison had lunched with the Dearmans, had brought Mrs. Dearman to the Horse Show, and was settling down, after she had welcomed her guests, to a delightful, entrancing, and thrillful afternoon with her to be broken but while he showed his horse when he had been early and utterly routed by the General. The heart of Mr. Ross-Ellison was sore within him, for he loved Mrs. Dearman very devotedly and respectfully.

He was always devotedly in love with some one, and she was always a nice good woman.

When she, or he, left the station, his heart died within him, life was hollow, and his mouth filled with Dead Sea fruit. The world he loved so much would turn to dust and ashes at his touch. After a week or so his heart would resurrect, life would become solid, and his mouth filled with merry song. He would fall in love afresh and the world went very well then.

At present he loved Mrs. Dearman and hated General Miltiades Murger, who had sent him for a programme and taken his seat beside Mrs. Dearman. There was none on the other side of her Mr. Ross-Ellison had seen to that and his prudent foresight had turned and rent him, for he could not plant a chair in the narrow gangway.

He wandered disconsolately away and instinctively sought the object of the one permanent and unwavering love of his life his mare “Zuleika,” late of Balkh.

Zuleika was more remarkable for excellences of physique than for those of mind and character. To one who knew her not, she was a wild beast, fitter for a cage in a Zoo than for human use, a wild-eyed, screaming man-eating she-devil; and none knew her save Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison, who had bought her unborn. (He knew her parents.)

“If you see an ugly old cove with no hair and a blue nose come over here for his number, just kick his foremost button, hard,” said Mr. Ross-Ellison to her as he gathered up the reins and, dodging a kick, prepared to mount. This was wrong of him, for Zuleika had never suffered any harm at the hands of General Miltiades Murger, “’eavy-sterned amateur old men” he quoted in a vicious grumble.

A wild gallop round the race-course did something to soothe the ruffled spirit of Mr. Ross-Ellison and nothing to improve Zuleika’s appearance just before she entered the show-ring.

On returning, Mr. Ross-Ellison met the Notable Nut (Lieutenant Nottinger Nutt, an ornament of the Royal Horse Artillery), and they talked evil of Dignitaries and Institutions amounting to high treason if not blasphemy, while watching the class in progress, with young but gloomy eyes.

“I don’t care what anybody says,” observed the Notable Nut. “You read the lists of prize-winners of all the bally horse-shows ever held here and you’ll find ’em all in strict and decorous order of owner’s rank. ’Chargers. First Prize Lieutenant-General White’s “Pink Eye”. Second Prize Brigadier-General Black’s “Red Neck”. Third Prize Colonel Brown’s “Ham Bone”. Highly commended Major Green’s “Prairie Oyster”. Nowhere at all Second-Lieutenant Blue’s “Cocktail,"’ and worth all the rest put together. I tell you I’ve seen horse after horse change hands after winning a First Prize as a General’s property and then win nothing at all as a common Officer’s or junior civilian’s, until bought again by a Big Pot. Then it sweeps the board. I don’t for one second dream of accusing Judges of favouritism or impropriety any kind, but I’m convinced that the glory of a brass-bound owner casts a halo about his horse that dazzles and blinds the average rough-rider, stud-groom and cavalry-sergeant, and don’t improve the eyesight of some of their betters, when judging.”

“You’re right, Nutty,” agreed Mr. Ross-Ellison. “Look at that horse ‘Runaway’. Last year it won the First Prize as a light-weight hunter, First Prize as a hack, and Highly Commended as a charger disqualified from a prize on account of having no mane. It then belonged to a Colonel of Dragoons. This year, with a mane and in, if possible, better condition, against practically the same horses, it wins nothing at all. This year it belongs to a junior in the P.W.D. one notices.”

“Just what I say,” acquiesced the aggrieved Nut, whose rejected horse had been beaten by another which it had itself beaten (under different ownership) the previous year. “Fact is, the judges should be absolutely ignorant as to who owns the horses. They mean well enough, but to them it stands to reason that the most exalted Pots own the most exalted horses. Besides, is it fair to ask a troop sergeant-major to order his own Colonel’s horse out of the ring, or the General’s either? They ought not to get subordinates in at all. Army Veterinary Colonels from other Divisions are the sort of chaps you want, and some really knowledgeable unofficial civilians and, as I say, to be in complete ignorance as to ownership. No man to ride his own horse and none of these bally numbers to prevent the Judges from thinking a General’s horse belongs to a common man, and from getting the notion that a subaltern’s horse belongs to a General.”

“Yes” mused Mr. Ross-Ellison, “and another thing. If you want to get a horse a win or a place in the Ladies’ Hack class get a pretty girl to ride it. They go by the riders’ faces and figures entirely.... Hullo! Class XIX wanted. That’s me and Zuleika. Come and tie the labels on my arms like a good dog.”

“Right O. But you haven’t the ghost of a little look in,” opined the Nut. “Old Murger has got a real corking English hunter in. A General will win as usual but he’ll win with by far the best horse, for once in the history of horse-shows.”

Dismounting and handing their reins to the syces, the two young gentlemen strolled over to the table where presided he of the pimples and number-labels.

A burly Sikh was pointing to the name of General Miltiades Murger and asking for the number printed thereagainst.

The youth handed Rissaldar-Major Shere Singh two labels each bearing the number 99. These, the gallant Native Officer proceeded to tie upon his arms putting them upside down, as is the custom of the native of India when dealing with anything in any wise reversible.

Mr. Ross-Ellison approached the table, showed his name on the programme and asked for his number 66.

“Tie these on,” said he returning to his friend. “By Jove there’s old Murger’s horse,” he added “what a magnificent animal!”

Looking up, the Nut saw Rissaldar-Major Shere Singh mounting the beautiful English hunter and also saw that he bore the number 66. Therefore the labels handed to him were obviously 99, and as 99 he tied on the 66 of Mr. Ross-Ellison who observed the fact.

“I am afraid I’m all Pathan at this moment,” silently remarked he unto his soul, and smiled an ugly smile.

“Not much good my entering Zuleika against that mare,” he said aloud. “It must have cost just about ten times what I paid for her. Never mind though! We’ll show up for the credit of civilians,” and he rode into the ring where a score of horses solemnly walked round and round the Judges and in front of the Grand Stand....

General Murger brought Mrs. Dearman a cup of tea, and, having placed his topi in his chair, went, for a brandy-and-soda and cheroot, to the bar behind the rows of seats.

On his return he beheld his superb and expensive hunter behaving superbly and expensively in the expert hands of Rissaldar-Major Shere Singh.

He feasted his eyes upon it.

Suddenly a voice, a voice he disliked intensely, the voice of Mr. Dearman croaked fiendishly in his ear: “Why, General, they’ve got your horse numbered wrongly!”

General Miltiades Murger looked again. Upon the arm of Rissaldar-Major Shere Singh was the number 66.

Opening his programme with trembling fingers he found his name, his horse’s name, and number 99!

He rose to his feet, stammering and gesticulating. As he did so the words:

“Take out number 66,” were distinctly borne to the ears of the serried ranks of the fashionable in the Grand Stand. Certain military-looking persons at the back abandoned all dignity and fell upon each other’s necks, poured great libations, danced, called upon their gods, or fell prostrate upon settees.

Others, seated among the ladies, looked into their bats as though in church.

“Has Ross-Ellison faked it?” ran from mouth to mouth, and, “He’ll be hung for this”.

A minute or so later the Secretary approached the Grand Stand and announced in stentorian tones:

“First Prize General Murger’s Darling, Number 99”.

While behind him upon Zuleika, chosen of the Judges, sat and smiled Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison, who lifted his voice and said: “Thanks No! This horse is mine and is named Zuleika.” He looked rather un-English, rather cunning, cruel and unpleasant quite different somehow, from his ordinary cheery, bright English self.

“Old” Brigadier General Miltiades Murger was unique among British Generals in that he sometimes resorted to alcoholic stimulants beyond reasonable necessity and had a roving and a lifting eye for a pretty woman. In one sense the General had never taken a wife and, in another, he had taken several. Indeed it was said of him by jealous colleagues that the hottest actions in which he had ever been engaged were actions for divorce or breach of promise, and that this type of imminent deadly breach was the kind with which he was best acquainted. Also that he was better at storming the citadel of a woman’s heart than at storming anything else.

No eminent man is without jealous detractors.

As to the stimulants, make no mistake and jump to no hasty conclusions. General Murger had never been seen drunk in the whole of his distinguished and famous (or as the aforesaid colleagues called it, egregious and notorious) career.

On the other hand, the voice of jealousy said he had never been seen sober either. In the words of envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness it declared that he had been born fuddled, had lived fuddled, and would die fuddled. And there were ugly stories.

Also some funny ones one of which concerns the, Gungapur Fusilier Volunteer Corps and Colonel Dearman, their beloved but shortly retiring (and, as some said, their worthy) Commandant.

Mr. Dearman was a very wealthy (and therefore popular), very red haired and very patriotic mill-owner who tried very hard to be proud of his Corps, and, without trying, was immensely proud of his wife.

As to the Corps well, it may at least be said that it would have followed its beloved Commandant anywhere (that was neither far nor dangerous), for every one of its Officers, except Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison, and the bulk of its men, were his employees.

They loved him for his wealth and they trusted him absolutely trusted him not to march them far nor work them much. And they were justified of their faith.

Several of the Officers were almost English though Greeks and Goa-Portuguese predominated, and there was undeniably a drop or two of English blood in the ranks, well diffused of course. Some folk said that even Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison was not as Scotch as his name.

On guest-nights in the Annual Camp of Exercise (when the Officers’ Mess did itself as well as any Mess in India and only took a few hundred rupees of the Government Grant for the purpose) Colonel Dearman would look upon the wine when it was bubbly, see his Corps through its golden haze, and wax so optimistic, so enthusiastic, so rash, as roundly to state that if he had five hundred of the Gungapur Fusiliers, with magazines charged and bayonets fixed, behind a stout entrenchment or in a fortified building, he would stake his life on their facing any unarmed city mob you could bring against them. But these were but post-prandial vapourings, and Colonel Dearman never talked nor thought any such folly when the Corps was present to the eye of flesh.

On parade he saw it for what it was a mob of knock-kneed, sniffling lads with just enough strength to suck a cigarette; anæmic clerks, fat cooks, and loafers with just enough wind to last a furlong march; huge beery old mechanics and ex-"Tommies,” forced into this coloured galley as a condition of their “job at the works “; and the non-native scum of the city of Gungapur which joined for the sake of the ammunition-boots and khaki suit.

There was not one Englishman who was a genuine volunteer and not half a dozen Parsis. Englishmen prefer to join a corps which consists of Englishmen or at least has an English Company. When they have no opportunity of so doing, it is a little unfair to class them with the lazy, unpatriotic, degenerate young gentlemen who have the opportunity and do not seize it. Captain Ross-Ellison was doing his utmost to provide the opportunity with disheartening results.

However Colonel Dearman tried very hard to be proud of his Corps and never forgave anyone who spoke slightingly of it.

As to his wife, there was, as stated, no necessity for any “trying”. He was immensely and justly proud of her as one of the prettiest, most accomplished, and most attractive women in the Bendras Presidency.

Mrs. “Pat” Dearman, nee Cleopatra Diamond Brighte, was, as has been said, consciously and most obviously a Good Woman. Brought up by a country rector and his vilely virtuous sister, her girlhood had been a struggle to combine her two ambitions, that of being a Good Woman with that of having a Good Time. In the village of Bishop’s Overley the former had been easier; in India the latter. But even in India, where the Good Time was of the very best, she forgot not the other ambition, went to church with unfailing regularity, read a portion of the Scriptures daily; headed subscription lists for the myriad hospitals, schools, widows’-homes, work-houses, Christian associations, churches, charitable societies, shelters, orphanages, rescue-homes and other deserving causes that appeal to the European in India; did her duty by Colonel Dearman, and showed him daily by a hundred little bright kindnesses that she had not married him for his great wealth but for his er his er not exactly his beauty or cleverness or youthful gaiety or learning or ability no, for his Goodness, of course, and because she loved him loved him for the said Goodness, no doubt. No, she never forgot the lessons of the Rectory, that it is the Whole Duty of Man to Save his or her Soul, but remembered to be a Good Woman while having the Good Time. Perhaps the most industriously pursued of all her goodnesses was her unflagging zealous labour in Saving the Souls of Others as well as her own Soul the “Others” being the young, presentable, gay, and well-placed men of Gungapur Society.

Yes, Mrs. Pat Dearman went beyond the Rectory teachings and was not content with personal salvation. A Good Woman of broad altruistic charity, there was not a young Civilian, not a Subaltern, not a handsome, interesting, smart, well-to-do, well-in-society, young bachelor in whose spiritual welfare she did not take the deepest personal interest. And, perhaps, of all such eligible souls in Gungapur, the one whose Salvation she most deeply desired to work out (after she wearied of the posings and posturings of Augustus Grobble) was that of Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison of her husband’s corps an exceedingly handsome, interesting, smart, well-to-do, well-in-society young bachelor. The owner of this eligible Soul forebore to tell Mrs. Pat Dearman that it was bespoke for Mohammed the Prophet of Allah inasmuch as almost the most entrancing, thrilling and delightful pursuit of his life was the pursuit of soul-treatment at the hands, the beautiful tiny white hands, of Mrs. Pat Dearman. Had her large soulful eyes penetrated this subterfuge, he would have jettisoned Mohammed forthwith, since, to him, the soul-treatment was of infinitely more interest and value than the soul, and, moreover, strange as it may seem, this Mussulman English gentleman had received real and true Christian teaching at his mother’s knee. When Mrs. Pat Dearman took him to Church, as she frequently did, on Sunday evenings, he was filled with great longings and with a conviction of the eternal Truth and Beauty of Christianity and the essential nobility of its gentle, unselfish, lofty teachings. He would think of his mother, of some splendid men and women he had known, especially missionaries, medical and other, at Bannu and Poona and elsewhere, and feel that he was really a Christian at heart; and then again in Khost and Mekran Kot, when carrying his life in his hand, across the border, in equal danger from the bullet of the Border Police, Guides, or Frontier Force cavalry-outposts and from the bullet of criminal tribesmen, when a devil in his soul surged up screaming for blood and fire and slaughter; during the long stealthy crawl as he stalked the stalker; during the wild, yelling, knife-brandishing rush; as he pressed the steady trigger or guided the slashing, stabbing Khyber knife, or as he instinctively hallaled the victim of his shikar, he knew he was a Pathan and a Mussulman as were his fathers.

But whether circumstances brought his English blood to the surface or his Pathan blood, whether the day were one of his most English days or one of his most Pathan days, whether it were a day of mingled and quickly alternating Englishry and Pathanity he now loved and supported Britain and the British Empire for Mrs. Dearman’s sake. Often as he (like most other non-officials) had occasion to detest and desire to kick the Imperial Englishman, championship of England and her Empire was now his creed. And as there was probably not another England-lover in all India who had his knowledge of under-currents, and forces within and without, he was perhaps the most anxiously loving of all her lovers, and the most appalled at the criminal carelessness, blind ignorance, fatuous conceit, and folly of a proportion of her sons in India.

Knowing what he knew of Teutonic intrigue and influence in India, Ceylon, Afghanistan, Aden, Persia, Egypt, East Africa, the Straits Settlements, and China, he was reminded of the men and women of Pompeii who ate, drank, and were merry, danced and sang, pursued pleasure and the nimble denarius, while Vesuvius rumbled.

Constantly the comparison entered his mind.

He had sojourned with Indian “students” in India, England, Germany, Geneva, America and Japan, and had belonged to the most secret of societies. He had himself been a well-paid agent of Germany in both Asia and Africa; and he had been instrumental in supplying thousands of rifles to Border raiders, Persian bandits, and other potential troublers of the pax Britannica. He now lived half his double life in Indian dress and moved on many planes; and to many places where even he could not penetrate unsuspected, his staunch and devoted slave, Moussa Isa, went observant. And all that he learnt and knew, within and without the confines of Ind, by itself disturbed him, as an England-lover, not at all. Taken in conjunction with the probabilities of a great European War it disturbed him mightily. As mightily as unselfishly. To him the dripping weapon, the blazing roof, the shrieking woman, the mangled corpse were but incidents, the unavoidable, unobjectionable concomitants of the Great Game, the game he most loved (and played upon every possible occasion) War.

While, with one half of his soul, John Robin Ross-Ellison might fear internal disruption, mutiny, rebellion and civil war for what it might bring to the woman he loved, with the other half of his soul, Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan dwelt upon the joys of battle, of campaigning, the bivouac, the rattle of rifle-fire, the charge, the circumventing and slaying of the enemy, as he circumvents that he may slay. Thus, it was with no selfish thought, no personal dread, that he grew, as said, mightily disturbed at what he knew of India whenever he saw signs of the extra imminence of the Great European Armageddon that looms upon the horizon, now near, now nearer still, now less near, but inevitably there, plain to the eyes of all observant, informed and thoughtful men.

What really astounded and appalled him was the mental attitude, the mental condition, of British “statesmen,” who (while a mighty and ever-growing neighbour, openly, methodically, implacably prepared for the war that was to win her place in the sun) laboured to reap votes by sowing class-hatred and devoted to national “insurance” moneys sorely needed to insure national existence.

To him it was as though hens cackled of introducing time-and-labour-saving incubators while the fox pressed against the unfastened door, smiling to think that their cackle smothered all other sounds ere they reached them or the watch-dog.

Yes while England was at peace, all was well with India; but let England find herself at war, fighting for her very existence ... and India might, in certain parts, be an uncomfortable place for any but the strong man armed, as soon as the British troops were withdrawn as they, sooner or later, most certainly would be. Then, feared Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison of the Gungapur Fusiliers, the British Flag would, for a terrible breathless period of stress and horror, fly, assailed but triumphant, wherever existed a staunch well-handled Volunteer Corps, and would flutter down into smoke, flames, ruin and blood, where there did not. He was convinced that, for a period, the lives of English women, children and men; English prosperity, prestige, law and order; English rule and supremacy, would in some parts of India depend for a time upon the Volunteers of India. At times he was persuaded that the very continuance of the British Empire might depend upon the Volunteers of India. If, during some Black Week (or Black Month or Year) of England’s death-struggle with her great rival she lost India (defenceless India, denuded of British troops), she would lose her Empire, be the result of her European war what it might. And knowing all that he knew, he feared for England, he feared for India, he feared for the Empire. Also he determined that, so far as it lay in the power of one war-trained man, the flag should be kept flying in Gungapur when the Great European Armageddon commenced, and should fly over a centre, and a shelter, for Mrs. Dearman, and for all who were loyal and true.

That would be a work worthy of the English blood of him and of the Pathan blood too. God! he would show some of these devious, subterranean, cowardly swine what war is, if they brought war to Gungapur in the hour of India’s danger and need, the hour of England and the Empire’s danger and need.

And Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison (and still more Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan), obsessed with the belief that a different and more terrible 1857 would dawn with the first big reverse in England’s final war with her systematic, slow, sure, and certain rival, her deliberate, scientific, implacable rival, gave all his thoughts, abilities and time to the enthralling, engrossing game of Getting Ready.

Perfecting his local system of secret information, hearing and seeing all that he could with his own Pathan ears and eyes, and adding to his knowledge by means of those of the Somali slave, he also learnt, at first hand, what certain men were saying in Cabul and on the Border and what those men say in those places is worth knowing by the meteorologist of world-politics. The pulse of the heart of Europe can be felt very far from that heart, and as is the wrist to the pulse-feeling doctor, is Afghanistan and the Border to the head of India’s Political Department; as is the doctor’s sensitive thumb to the doctor’s brain, is the tried, trusted and approven agent of the Secret Service to the Head of all the Politicals.... What chiefly troubled Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison of the Gungapur Fusiliers was the shocking condition of those same Fusiliers and the blind smug apathy, the fatuous contentment, the short memories and shorter sight, of the British Pompeians who were perfectly willing that the condition of the said Fusiliers should remain so.

Clearly the first step towards a decently reliable and efficient corps in Gungapur was the abolition of the present one, and, with unformulated intentions towards its abolition, Mr. Ross-Ellison, by the kind influence of Mrs. Dearman, joined as a Second Lieutenant and speedily rose to the rank of Captain and the command of a Company. A year’s indefatigable work convinced him that he might as well endeavour to fashion sword-blades from leaden pipes as to make a fighting unit of his gang of essentially cowardly, peaceful, unreliable, feeble nondescripts. That their bodies were contemptible he would have regarded as merely deplorable, but there was no spirit, no soul, no tradition nothing upon which he could work. “Broken-down tapsters and serving-men” indeed, in Cromwell’s bitter words, and to be replaced by “men of a spirit”.

They must go and make way for men if indeed men could be found, men who realized that even an Englishman owes something to the community when he goes abroad, in spite of his having grown up in a land where honourable and manly National Service is not, and those who keep him safe are cheap hirelings, cheaply held....

On the arrival of General Miltiades Murger he sat at his feet as soon as, and whenever, possible; only to discover that he was not only uninterested in, but obviously contemptuous of, volunteers and volunteering. When, at the Dearmans’ dinner-table, he endeavoured to talk with the General on the subject he was profoundly discouraged, and on his asking what was to happen when the white troops went home and the Indian troops went to the Border, or even to Europe, as soon as England’s inevitable and final war broke out, he was also profoundly snubbed.

When, after that dinner, General Miltiades Murger made love to Mrs. Dearman on the verandah, he also made an enemy, a bitter, cruel, and vindictive enemy of Mr. Ross-Ellison (or rather of Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan).

Nor did his subsequent victory at the Horse Show lessen the enmity, inasmuch as Mrs. Dearman (whom Ross-Ellison loved with the respectful platonic devotion of an English gentleman and the fierce intensity of a Pathan) took General Miltiades Murger at his own valuation, when that hero described himself and his career to her by the hour. For the General had succumbed at a glance, and confided to his Brigade-Major that Mrs. Dearman was a dooced fine woman and the Brigade-Major might say that he said so, damme.

As the General’s infatuation increased he told everybody else also everybody except Colonel Dearman who, of course, knew it already.

He even told Jobler, his soldier-servant, promoted butler, as that sympathetic and admiring functionary endeavoured to induce him to go to bed without his uniform.

At last he told Mrs. Dearman herself, as he saw her in the rosy light that emanated from the fine old Madeira that fittingly capped a noble luncheon given by him in her honour.

He also told her that he loved her as a father and she besought him not to be absurd. Later he loved her as an uncle, later still as a cousin, later yet as a brother, and then as a man.

She had laughed deprecatingly at the paternal affection, doubtfully at the avuncular, nervously at the cousinly, angrily at the brotherly, and not at all at the manly.

In fact as the declaration of manly love had been accompanied by an endeavour to salute what the General had called her damask-cheek she had slapped the General’s own cheek a resounding blow....

“Called you ‘Mrs. Darlingwoman,’ did he!” roared Mr. Dearman upon being informed of the episode. “Wished to salute your damask cheek, did he! The boozy old villain! Damask cheek! Damned cheek! Where’s my dog-whip?” ... but Mrs. Dearman had soothed and restrained her lord for the time being, and prevented him from insulting and assaulting the “aged roue” who was years younger, in point of fact, than the clean-living Mr. Dearman himself.

But he had shut his door to the unrepentant and unashamed General, had cut him in the Club, had returned a rudely curt answer to an invitation to dinner, and had generally shown the offender that he trod on dangerous ground when poaching on the preserves of Mr. Dearman. Whereat the General fumed.

Also the General swore that he would cut the comb of this insolent money-grubbing civilian.

Further, he intimated his desire to inspect the Gungapur Fusiliers “on Saturday next”.

Not the great and terrible Annual Inspection, of course, but a preliminary canter in that direction.

Doubtless, the new General desired to arrive at a just estimate of the value of this unit of his Command, and to allot to it the place for which it was best fitted in the scheme of local defence and things military at Gungapur.

Perhaps he desired to teach the presumptuous upstart, Dearman, a little lesson....

The Brigade Major’s demy-official letter, bearing the intimation of the impending visitation fell as a bolt from the blue and smote the Colonel of the Gungapur Fusiliers a blow that turned his heart to water and loosened the tendons of his knees.

The very slack Adjutant was at home on leave; the Sergeant-Major was absolutely new to the Corps; the Sergeant-Instructor was alcoholic and ill; and there was not a company officer, except the admirable Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison, competent to drill a company as a separate unit, much less to command one in a battalion. And Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison was away on an alleged shikar-trip across the distant Border. Colonel Dearman knew his battalion-drill. He also knew his Gungapur Fusiliers and what they did when they received the orders of those feared and detested evolutions. They walked about, each man a law unto himself, or stood fast until pushed in the desired direction by blasphemous drill-corporals.

Nor could any excuse be found wherewith to evade the General. It was near the end of the drill-season, the Corps was up to its full strength, all the Officers were in the station except Captain Ross-Ellison and the Adjutant. And the Adjutant’s absence could not be made a just cause and impediment why the visit of the General should not be paid, for Colonel Dearman had with some difficulty, procured the appointment of one of his Managers as acting-adjutant.

To do so he had been moved to describe the man as an “exceedingly smart and keen Officer,” and to state that the Corps would in no way suffer by this temporary change from a military to a civilian adjutant, from a professional to an amateur.

Perhaps the Colonel was right it would have taken more than that to make the Gungapur Fusiliers “suffer”.

And all had gone exceeding well up to the moment of the receipt of this terrible demi-official, for the Acting-Adjutant had signed papers when and where the Sergeant-Major told him, and had saluted the Colonel respectfully every Saturday evening at five, as he came on parade, and suggested that the Corps should form fours and march round and round the parade ground, prior to attempting one or two simple movements as usual.

No. It would have to be unless, of course, the General had a stroke before Saturday, or was smitten with delirium tremens in time. For it was an article of faith with Colonel Dearman since the disgraceful episode that a “stroke” hung suspended by the thinnest of threads above the head of the “aged roue” and that, moreover, he trembled on the verge of a terrible abyss of alcoholic diseases a belief strengthened by the blue face, boiled eye, congested veins and shaking hand of the breaker of hearts. And Colonel Dearman knew that he must not announce the awful fact until the Corps was actually present or few men and fewer Officers would find it possible to be on parade on that occasion.

Saturday evening came, and with it some five hundred men and Officers the latter as a body, much whiter-faced than usual, on receipt of the appalling news.

“Thank God I have nothing to do but sit around on my horse,” murmured Major Pinto.

“Don’t return thanks yet,” snapped Colonel Dearman. “You’ll very likely have to drill the battalion” and the Major went as white as his natural disadvantages permitted.

Bitterly did Captain Trebizondi regret his constant insistence upon the fact that he was senior Captain for he was given command of “A” Company, the post of honour and danger in front of all, and was implored to “pull it through” and not to stand staring like an owl when the Colonel said the battalion would advance; or turn to the left when he shouted “In succession advance in fours from the right of Companies”.

And in the orderly-room was much hurried consulting of Captain Ross-Ellison’s well-trained subaltern and of drill-books; and a babel of such questions as: “I say, what the devil do I do if I’m commanding Number Two and he says ‘Deploy outwards’? Go to the right or left?”

More than one gallant officer was seen scribbling for dear life upon his shirt-cuff, while others, to the common danger, endeavoured to practise the complicated sword-brandishment which is consequent upon the order “Fall out the Officers”.

Colonel Dearman appealed to his brothers-in-arms to stand by him nobly in his travail, but was evidently troubled by the fear that some of them would stand by him when they ought to march by him. Captain Petropaulovski, the acting-adjutant, endeavoured to moisten his parched lips with a dry tongue and sat down whenever opportunity offered.

Captain Euxino Spoophitophiles was seen to tear a page from a red manual devoted to instruction in the art of drill and to secrete it as one “palms” a card if one is given to the palming of cards. Captain Schloggenboschenheimer was heard to promise a substantial trink-geld, pour-boire, or vot-you-call-tip to Sergeant-Instructor Progg in the event of the latter official remaining mit him and prompting him mit der-vord-to-say ven it was necessary for him der-ting-to-do.

Too late, Captain Da Costa bethought him of telephoning to his wife (to telephone back to himself imploring him to return at once as she was parlous ill and sinking fast), for even as he stepped quietly toward the telephone-closet the Sergeant-Major bustled in with a salute and the fatal words:

“’Ere’s the General, Sir!”

“For God’s sake get on parade and play the man this day,” cried Colonel Dearman, as he hurried out to meet the General, scoring his right boot with his left spur and tripping over his sword en route.

The General greeted the Colonel as a total stranger, addressed him as “Colonel,” and said he anticipated great pleasure from this his first visit to the well-known Gungapur Fusiliers. He did, and he got it.

Dismounting slowly and heavily from his horse (almost as though “by numbers”) the General, followed by his smart and dapper Brigade-Major and the perspiring Colonel Dearman, strode with clank of steel and creak of leather, through the Headquarters building and emerged upon the parade-ground where steadfast stood seven companies of the Gungapur Fusilier Volunteers in quarter column more or less at “attention”.

“’Shun!” bawled Colonel Dearman, and those who were “at ease” ’shunned, and those who were already ’shunning took their ease.

“’Shun!” again roared the Colonel, and those who were now in that military position relinquished it while those who were not, assumed it in their own good time.

As the trio drew nigh unto the leading company, Captain Trebizondi, coyly lurking behind its rear rank, shrilly screamed, “‘A’ Gompany! Royal Salutes! Present Arrrrms!” while a volunteer, late a private of the Loyal Whitechapel Regiment, and now an unwilling member of this corps of auxiliary troops, audibly ejaculated through one corner of his mobile mouth:

“Don’t you do nothink o’ the sort!” and added a brief orison in prejudice of his eyesight.

Certain of “A’s” stalwarts obeyed their Captain, while others took the advice of the volunteer who was known to have been a man of war in the lurid past, and to understand these matters.

Lieutenant Toddywallah tugged valiantly at his sword for a space, but finding that weapon coy and unwilling to leave its sheath, he raised his helmet gracefully and respectfully to the General. His manner was always polished.

“What the devil are they doing?” inquired the General.

“B,” “C,” “D,” “E,” “F,” and “G” Companies breathed hard and protruded their stomachs, while Sergeant-Instructor Progg deserved well of Captain Schloggenboschenheimer by sharply tugging his tunic-tail as he was in the act of roaring:

“Gomm!” the first syllable of the word “Company,” with a view to bestowing a royal salute likewise. Instead, the Captain extended the hand of friendship to the General as he approached. The look of nil admirari boredom slowly faded from the face of the smart and dapper Brigade-Major, and for a while it displayed quite human emotions.

Up and down and between the ranks strode the trio, the General making instructive and interesting comments from time to time, such as:

“Are your buttons of metal or bone, my man? Polish them and find out.”

“What did you cook in that helmet?”

“Take your belt in seven holes, and put it where your waist was.”

“Are you fourteen years old yet?”

“Personally I don’t care to see brown boots, patent shoes nor carpet slippers with uniform.”

“And when were you ninety, my poor fellow?”

“Get your belly out of my way.”

“Put this unclean person under arrest or under a pump, please, Colonel.”

“Can you load a rifle unaided?” and so forth.

The last-mentioned query “Can you load a rifle unaided?” addressed to a weedy youth of seventeen who stood like a living mark-of-interrogation, elicited the reply:

“Nossir”.

“Oh, really! And what can you do?” replied the General sweetly.

“Load a rifle Lee-Metford,” was the prompt answer.

The General smiled wintrily, and, at the conclusion of his peregrination, remarked to Colonel Dearman:

“Well, Colonel, I can safely say that I have never inspected a corps quite like yours” an observation capable of various interpretations and intimated a desire to witness some company drill ere testing the abilities of the regiment in battalion drill.

“Let the rear company march out and go through some movements,” said he.

“Why the devil couldn’t he have chosen Ross-Ellison’s company,” thought Colonel Dearman, as he saluted and lifted up his voice and cried aloud:

“Captain Rozario! March ‘G’ Company out for some company-drill. Remainder stand easy.”

Captain Rozario paled beneath the bronze imparted to his well-nourished face by the suns of Portugal (or Goa), drew his sword, dropped it, picked it up, saluted with his left hand and backed into Lieutenant Xenophontis of “F” Company, who asked him vare the devil he was going to hein?...

To the first cold stroke of fright succeeded the hot flush of rage as Captain Rozario saw the absurdity of ordering him to march his company out for company drill. How in the name of all the Holy Saints could he march his company out with six companies planted in front of him? Let them be cleared away first. To his men he ejaculated:

“Compannee!” and they accepted the remark in silence.

The silence growing tense he further ejaculated “Ahem!” very loudly, without visible result or consequence. The silence growing tenser, Colonel Dearman said encouragingly but firmly:

“Do something, Captain Rozario”.

Captain Rozario did something. He drew his whistle. He blew it. He replaced it in his pocket.

Nothing happening, he took his handkerchief from his sleeve, blew his nose therewith and dropped it (the handkerchief) upon the ground. Seven obliging volunteers darted forward to retrieve it.

“May we expect the evolutions this evening, Colonel?” inquired General Murger politely.

“We are waiting for you to move off, Captain Rozario,” stated Colonel Dearman.

“Sir, how can I move off with oll the rest in my front?” inquired Captain Rozario reasonably.

“Form fours, right, and quick march,” prompted the Sergeant-Major, and Captain Rozario shrilled forth:

“Form right fours and march quick,” at the top of his voice.

Many members of “G” Company turned to their right and marched towards the setting-sun, while some turned to their left and marched in the direction of China.

These latter, discovering in good time that they had erred, hurried to rejoin their companions and “G” Company was soon in full swing if not in fours....

There is a limit to all enterprise and the march of “G” Company was stayed by a high wall.

Then Captain Rozario had an inspiration.

“About turn,” he shrieked and “G” Company about turned as one man, if not in one direction.

The march of “G” Company was stayed this time by the battalion into which it comfortably nuzzled.

Again Captain Rozario seized the situation and acted promptly and resourcefully.

“Halt!” he squeaked, and “G” Company halted in form an oblate spheroid.

Some of its members removed their helmets and the sweat of their brows, some re-fastened bootlaces and putties or unfastened restraining hooks and buttons. One gracefully succumbed to his exertions and fainting fell, with an eye upon the General.

“Interestin’ evolution,” remarked that Officer. “Demmed interestin’. May we have some more?”

“Get on, Captain Rozario,” implored Colonel Dearman. “Let’s see some company-drill.”

“One hundred and twenty-five paces backward march,” cried Captain Rozario after a brief calculation, and “G” Company reluctantly detached itself from the battalion, backwards.

“Turn round this away and face to me,” continued the gallant Captain, “and then on the left form good companee.”

The oblate spheroid assumed an archipelagic formation, melting into irregularly-placed military islands upon a sea of dust.

“Oll get together and left dress, please,” besought Captain Rozario, and many of the little islands amalgamated with that on their extreme right while the remainder gravitated to their left the result being two continents of unequal dimensions.

As Captain Rozario besought these disunited masses to conjoin, the voice of the General was heard in the land

“Kindly order that mob to disperse before it is fired on, will you, Colonel? They can go home and stay there,” said he.

Captain Rozario was a man of sensibility and he openly wept.

No one could call this a good beginning nor could they have called the ensuing battalion-drill a good ending.

“Put the remainder of the battalion through some simple movements if they know any,” requested the General.

Determined to retrieve the day yet, Colonel Dearman saluted, cleared his throat terrifically and shouted: ’"Tallish, ’shun!” with such force that a nervous man in the front rank of “A” Company dropped his rifle and several “presented” arms.

Only one came to the “slope,” two to the “trail” and four to the “shoulder”.

Men already at attention again stood at ease, while men already at ease again stood at attention.

Disregarding these minor contretemps, Colonel Dearman clearly and emphatically bellowed:

“The battalion will advance. In succession, advance in fours from the left of companies ”

“Why not tell off the battalion just for luck?” suggested General Murger.

“Tell off the battalion,” said Colonel Dearman in his natural voice and an unnaturally crestfallen manner.

Captain Trebizondi of “A” Company glared to his front, and instead of replying “Number One” in a loud voice, held his peace tight.

But his lips moved constantly, and apparently Captain Trebizondi was engaged in silent prayer.

“Tell off the battalion,” bawled the Colonel again.

Captain Trebizondi’s lips moved constantly.

“Will you tell off the dam battalion, Sir?” shouted the Colonel at the enrapt supplicant.

Whether Captain Trebizondi is a Mohammedan I am not certain, but, if so, he may have remembered words of the Prophet to the effect that it is essential to trust in Allah absolutely, and expedient to tie up your camel yourself, none the less. Captain Trebizondi was trusting in Allah perchance but he had not tied up his camel; he had not learnt his drill.

And when Colonel Dearman personally and pointedly appealed to him in the matter of the battalion’s telling-off, he turned round and faced it and said

“Ah battalion er ” in a very friendly and persuasive voice.

Then a drill corporal took it upon him to bawl Number One as Captain Trebizondi should have done, some one shouted Number Two from “B” Company, the colour-sergeant of “C” bawled Number Three and then, with ready wit, the Captains of “D,” “E,” and “F” caught up the idea, and the thing was done.

So far so good.

And the Colonel returned to his first venture and again announced to the battalion that it would advance in succession and in fours from the left of companies.

It bore the news with equanimity and Captain Trebizondi visibly brightened at the idea of leaving the spot on which he had suffered and sweated but he took no steps in the matter personally.

He tried to scratch his leg through his gaiter.

“‘A’ Company going this evening?” inquired the General. “Wouldn’t hurry you, y’know, but I dine at nine.”

Captain Trebizondi remembered his parade-manners and threw a chest instead of a stomach.

The jerk caused his helmet to tilt forward over his eyes and settle down slowly and firmly upon his face as a fallen cliff upon the beach beneath.

“The Officer commanding the leading company appears to be trying to hide,” commented General Murger.

Captain Trebizondi uncovered his face a face of great promise but no performance.

“Will you march your company off, sir,” shouted Colonel Dearman, “the battalion is waiting for you.”

With a look of reproachful surprise and an air of “Why couldn’t you say so?” the harassed Captain agitated his sword violently as a salute, turned to his company and boomed finely:

“March off!”

The Company obeyed its Commander.

Seeing the thing so easy of accomplishment Captains Allessandropoulos, Schloggenboschenheimer, Da Costa, Euxino, Spoophitophiles and Jose gave the same order and the battalion was in motion marching to its front in quarter-column instead of wheeling off in fours.

Unsteadily shoulder from shoulder,
Unsteadily blade from blade,
Unsteady and wrong, slouching along,
Went the boys of the old brigade.

“Halt,” roared Colonel Dearman.

“Oh, don’t halt ’em,” begged General Murger, “it’s the most entertainin’ show I have ever seen.”

The smart and dapper Brigade-Major’s mouth was open.

Major Pinto and Captain-and-Acting-Adjutant Petropaulovski forgot to cling to their horses with hand and heel and so endangered their lives.

The non-commissioned officers of the permanent staff commended their souls to God and marched as men in a dream.

On hearing the Colonel’s cry of “Halt” many of the men halted. Not hearing the Colonel’s cry of “Halt” many of the men did not halt.

In two minutes the battalion was without form and void.

In ten minutes the permanent staff had largely re-sorted it and, to a great extent, re-formed the original companies.

Captain Jose offered his subaltern, Lieutenant Bylegharicontractor, a hundred rupees to change places with him.

Offer refused, with genuine and deep regret, but firmly.

“Shall we have another try, Colonel,” inquired General Murger silkily. “Any amount of real initiative and originality about this Corps. But I am old-fashioned enough to prefer drill-book evolutions on the barrack-square, I confess. Er let the Major carry on as it is getting late.”

Colonel Dearman’s face flushed a rich dark purple. His eyes protruded till they resembled those of a crab. His red hair appeared to flame like very fire. His lips twitched and he gasped for breath. Could he believe his ears. “Let the Major carry on as it is getting late!” Let him step into the breach “as it is getting late!” Let the more competent, though junior, officer take over the command “as it is getting late”. Ho! likewise Ha! This aged roue, this miserable wine-bibbing co-respondent, with his tremulous hand and boiled eye, thought that Colonel Dearman did not know his drill, did he? Wanted the wretched and incompetent Pinto to carry on, did he? as it was getting late.

Good! Ha! Likewise Ho! “Let Pinto carry on as it was getting late!”

Very well! If it cost Colonel Dearman every penny he had in the world he would have his revenge on the insolent scoundrel. He might think he could insult Colonel Dearman’s wife with impunity, he might think himself entitled to cast ridicule on Colonel Dearman’s Corps but “let the Major carry on as it is getting late!” By God that was too much! That was the last straw that breaks the camel’s heart and Colonel Dearman would have his revenge or lose life, honour, and wealth in the attempt.

Ha! and, moreover, Ho!

The Colonel knew his battalion-drill by heart and backwards. Was it his fault that his officers were fools and his men damn-fools?

Major Pinto swallowed hard, blinked hard, and breathed hard. Like the Lady of Shallott he felt that the curse had come upon him.

“Battalion will advance. Quick march,” he shouted, as a safe beginning. But the Sergeant-Major had by this time fully explained to the sweating Captain Trebizondi that he should have given the order “Form fours. Left. Right wheel. Quick march,” when the Colonel had announced that the battalion would advance “in succession from the left of companies”.

Like lightning he now hurled forth the orders. “Form fours. Left. Right wheel. Quick march.”, and the battalion was soon under way with one company in column of fours and the remaining five companies in line....

Time cures all troubles, and in time “A” Company was pushed and pulled back into line again.

The incident pleased Major Pinto as it wasted the fleeting minutes and gave him a chance to give the only other order of which he was sure.

“That was oll wrong,” said he. “We will now, however, oll advance as ‘A’ Company did. The arder will be ’Battalion will advance. In succession, advance in fours from the right of companees.’ Thenn each officer commanding companees will give the arder ’Form fours. Right. Left wheel. Quick march’ one after thee other.”

And the Major gave the order.

To the surprise of every living soul upon the parade-ground the manoeuvre was correctly executed and the battalion moved off in column of fours. And it kept on moving. And moving. For Major Pinto had come to the end of his tether.

“Do something, man,” said Colonel Dearman with haughty scorn, after some five minutes of strenuous tramping had told severely on the morale of the regiment.

And Major Pinto, hoping for the best and fearing the worst, lifted up his voice and screamed:

“On the right form battalion!”

Let us draw a veil.

The adjective that General Murger used with the noun he called the
Gungapur Fusiliers is not to be printed.

The address he made to that Corps after it had once more found itself would have led a French or Japanese regiment to commit suicide by companies, taking the time from the right. A Colonel of Romance Race would have fallen on his sword at once (and borrowed something more lethal had it failed to penetrate).

But the corps, though not particularly British, was neither French nor Japanese and was very glad of the rest while the General talked. And Colonel Dearman, instead of falling on his sword, fell on General Murger (in spirit) and swore to be revenged tenfold.

He would have his own back, cost what it might, or his name was not Dearman and he was going Home on leave immediately after the Volunteer Annual Camp of Exercise, just before General Murger retired....

“I shall inspect your corps in camp,” General Murger had said, “and the question of its disbandment may wait until I have done so.”

Disbandment! The question of the disbandment of the fine and far-famed Fusiliers of Gungapur could wait till then, could it? Well and good! Ha! and likewise Ho!

On Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison’s return from leave, Colonel Dearman told that officer of General Murger’s twofold insult to Colonel Dearman’s wife and to Colonel Dearman’s Corps. On hearing of the first, Captain Ross-Ellison showed his teeth in a wolfish and ugly manner, and, on hearing of the second, propounded a scheme of vengeance that made Colonel Dearman grin and then burst into a roar of laughter. He bade Captain Ross-Ellison dine with him and elaborate details of the scheme.

To rumours of General Murger’s failing health and growing alcoholism Colonel Dearman listened with interest nay, satisfaction. Stories of seizures, strokes and “goes” of delirium tremens met with no rebuke nor contradiction from him and an air of leisured ease and unanxious peacefulness pervaded the Gungapur Fusiliers. If any member had thought that the sad performance of the fatal Saturday night and the winged words of General Murger were to be the prelude to period of fierce activity and frantic preparation, he was mistaken. It was almost as though Colonel Dearman believed that General Murger would not live to carry out his threat.

The corps paraded week by week, fell in, marched round the ground and fell out again. There was no change of routine, no increase of work, no stress, no strain.

All was peace, the corps was happy, and in the fullness of time (and the absence of the Adjutant) it went to Annual Camp of Exercise a few miles from Gungapur. And there the activities of Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison and a large band of chosen men were peculiar. While the remainder, with whom went Colonel Dearman, the officers, and the permanent staff, marched about in the usual manner and enjoyed the picnic, these others appeared to be privately and secretly rehearsing a more specialized part to the mystification and wonder of the said remainder. Even on the great day, the day of the Annual Inspection, this division was maintained and the “remainder” were marched off to the other side of the wood adjacent to the Camp, some couple of hours before the expected arrival of the General, who would come out by train.

The arrangement was that the horses of the General and the Brigade-Major should await those officers at the camp station, and that, on arrival, they would be mounted by their owners who would then ride to the camp, a furlong distant. Near the camp a mounted orderly would meet the General and escort him to the spot where the battalion, with Colonel Dearman at its head, would be drawn up for his inspection.

A large bungalow, used as the Officers’ Mess, a copse, and a hillock completely screened the spot used as the battalion parade-ground, from the view of one approaching the Camp, and the magnificent sight of the Gungapur Fusiliers under arms would burst upon him only when he rounded the corner of a wall of palms, cactus, and bamboos, and entered by a narrow gap between it and a clump of dense jungle.

General Murger was feeling distinctly bad as he sat on the edge of his bed and viewed with the eye of disfavour the choti hazri set forth for his delectation.

As he intended to inspect the Volunteers in the early morning and return to a mid-day breakfast, the choti hazri was substantial, though served on a tray in his bedroom.

The General yawned, rubbed his eyes and grunted.

“Eggs be demmed,” said he.

“Toast be demmed,” he said.

“Tea be demmed,” he shouted.

“Pate de fois gras be demmed,” shouted he.

“Jobler! Bring me a bottle of beer,” he roared.

“No, bring me a brandy-cocktail,” roared he.

For the brandy-cocktail the General felt better for a time but he wished, first, that his hand would not shake in such a way that hair-brushing was difficult and shaving impossible; secondly, that the prevailing colour of everything was not blue; thirdly, that he did not feel giddy when he stood up; fourthly, that his head did not ache; fifthly, that his mouth would provide some other flavour than that of a glue-coated copper coin; sixthly, that things would keep still and his boots cease to smile at him from the corner; seventhly, that he had not gone to the St. Andrew’s dinner last night, begun on punch a la Romaine, continued on neat whisky in quaichs and finished on port, liqueurs, champagne and haphazard brandy-and-sodas, whisky-and-sodas, and any old thing that was handy; and eighthly, that he had had a quart of beer instead of the brandy-cocktail for choti hazri.

But that could easily be remedied by having the beer now. The General had the beer and soon wished that he hadn’t, for it made him feel very bad indeed.

However, a man must do his dooty, ill or well, and when the Brigade-Major sent up to remind the General that the train went at seven, he was answered by the General himself and a hint that he was officious. During the brief train-journey the General slumbered.

On mounting his horse, the General was compelled to work out a little sum.

If one has four fingers there must be three inter-finger spaces, eh? Granted. Then how the devil are four reins to go into three places between four fingers, eh? Absurd idea, an’ damsilly. However, till the matter was referred to the War Office and finally settled, one could put two reins between two fingers or pass one outside the lill’ finger, what? But the General hated compromises.... The mounted orderly met the General, saluted and directed him to the entrance to the tree-encircled camp and parade-ground.

At the entrance, the General, leading, reined in so sharply as to throw his horse on its haunches his mouth fell open, his mottled face went putty-coloured, and each hair that he possessed appeared to bristle.

He uttered a deep groan, rubbed his eyes, emitted a yell, wheeled round and galloped for dear life, with a cry, nay a scream, of “I’ve got ’em at last,” followed by his utterly bewildered but ever-faithful Brigade-Major, who had seen nothing but foliage, scrub, and cactus. To Gungapur the General galloped without drawing rein, took to his bed, sent for surgeon and priest and became a teetotaller.

And what had he seen?

The affair is wrapped in mystery.

The Brigade-Major says nothing because he knows nothing, as it happens, and the Corps declared it was never inspected. Father Ignatius knows what the General saw, or thinks he saw, and so does the Surgeon-General, but neither is in the habit of repeating confessions and confidences. What Jobler, at the keyhole, understood him to say he had seen, or thought he had seen, is not to be believed.

Judge of it.

“I rode into the dem place and what did I behold? A dem pandemonium, Sir, a pantomime a lunatic asylum, Sir all Hell out for a Bank Holiday, I tell you. There was a battalion of Red Indians, Negroes, Esquimaux, Ballet Girls, Angels, Sweeps, Romans, Sailors, Pierrots, Savages, Bogeymen, Ancient Britons, Bishops, Zulus, Pantaloons, Beef-eaters, Tramps, Life-Guards, Washerwomen, Ghosts, Clowns and God-knows-what, armed with jezails, umbrellas, brooms, catapults, pikes, brickbats, kukeries, pokers, clubs, axes, horse-pistols, bottles, dead fowls, polo-sticks, assegais and bombs. They were commanded by a Highlander in a bum-bee tartan kilt, top-hat and one sock, with a red nose a foot long, riding on a rocking horse and brandishing a dem great cucumber and a tea-tray made into a shield. There was a thundering great drain-pipe mounted on a bullock-cart and a naked man, painted blue, in a cocked-hat, laying an aim and firing a penny-pistol down the middle of it and yelling ‘Pip!’

“There was a chauffeur in smart livery on an elephant, twirling a steering-wheel on its neck for dear life, and tooting a big motor-horn.. There was a fat man in a fireman’s helmet and pyjamas, armed with a peashooter, riding a donkey backwards and the moke wore two pairs of trousers!... As I rubbed my poor old eyes, the devil in command howled ’General salaam. Pre_sent_-legs’ and every fiend there fell flat on his face and raised his right leg up behind I tell you, Sir, I fled for my life, and no more liquor for me.” ...

When ex-Colonel Dearman heard any reference to this mystery he roared with laughter but it was the Last Muster of the fine and far-famed Gungapur Fusiliers, as such.

The Corps was disbanded forthwith and re-formed on a different basis (of quality instead of quantity) with Lieutenant-Colonel John Robin Ross-Ellison, promoted, in command he having caught the keen eye of that splendid soldier and gentleman Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Barnet, K.C.V.O., K.C.S.I. (G.O.C., XVIth Division), as being the very man for the job of re-organizing the Corps, and making it worth its capitation-grant.

“If I could get Captain Malet-Marsac as Adjutant and a Sergeant-Major of whom I know (used to be at Duri man named Lawrence-Smith) I’d undertake to show you something, Sir, in a year or two,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Ross-Ellison.

“Malet-Marsac you can certainly have,” replied Sir Arthur Barnet. “I’ll speak to your new Brigadier. If you can find your Lawrence-Smith we’ll see what can be done.” ...

And Lieutenant-Colonel Ross-Ellison wrote to Sergeant-Major Lawrence-Smith of the Duri Volunteer Rifles to know if he would like a transfer upon advantageous terms, and got no reply.

As it happened, Lieutenant-Colonel Ross-Ellison, in very different guise, had seen Sergeant Lawrence-Smith extricate and withdraw his officerless company from the tightest of tight places (on the Border) in a manner that moved him to large admiration. It had been a case of “and even the ranks of Tuscany” on the part of Mir Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan Ilderim Dost Mahommed.... Later he had encountered him and Captain Malet-Marsac at Duri.

SECTION 3. SERGEANT-MAJOR LAWRENCE-SMITH.

Mrs. Pat Dearman was sceptical.

“Do you mean to tell me that you, a man of science, an eminent medical man, and a soldier, believe in the supernatural?”

“Well, you see, I’m ‘Oirish’ and therefore unaccountable,” replied Colonel Jackson (of the Royal Army Medical Corps), fine doctor, fine scholar, and fine gentleman.

“And you believe in haunted houses and ghosts and things, do you? Well!”

The salted-almond dish was empty, and Mrs. Dearman accused her other neighbour, Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison. Having already prepared to meet and rebut the charge of greediness he made passes over the vessel and it was replenished.

“Supernatural!” said she.

“Most,” said he.

She prudently removed the dish to the far side of her plate and Colonel Jackson emptied it.

Not having prepared to meet the request to replenish the store a second time, it was useless for Mr. Ross-Ellison to make more passes when commanded so to do.

“The usual end of the ‘supernatural,’” observed Mrs. Dearman with contempt.

“Most usual,” said he.

“More than ‘most,’” corrected Mrs. Dearman. “It is the invariable end of it, I believe. Just humbug and rubbish. It is either an invention, pure and simple, or else it is perfectly explicable. Don’t you think so, Colonel Jackson?”

“Not always,” said her partner. “Now, will you, first, believe my word, and, secondly, find the explanation if I tell you a perfectly true ‘supernatural’ story?”

“I’ll certainly believe your word, Colonel, if you’re serious, and I’ll try and suggest an explanation if you like,” replied Mrs. Dearman.

“Same to me, Mrs. Dearman?” asked Mr. Ross-Ellison. “I’ve had ‘experiences’ too and can tell you one of them.”

“Same to you, Mr. Ross-Ellison,” replied Mrs. Dearman, and added: “But why only one of them?”

Mr. Ross-Ellison smiled, glanced round the luxuriously appointed table and the company of fair women and brave men and thought of a far-distant and little-known place called Mekran Kot and of a phantom cavalry corps that haunted a valley in its vicinity.

“Only one worth telling,” said he.

“Well, first case,” began Colonel Jackson, “I was once driving past a cottage on my way home from College (in Ireland), and I saw the old lady who lived in that cottage come out of the door, cross her bit of garden, go through a gate, scuttle over the railway-line and enter a fenced field that had belonged to her husband, and which she (and a good many other people) believed rightly belonged to her.

“’There goes old Biddy Maloney pottering about in that plot of ground again,’ thinks I. ‘She’s got it on the brain since her law-suit.’ I knew it was Biddy, of course, not only because of her coming out of Biddy’s house, but because it was Biddy’s figure, walk, crutch-stick, and patched old cloak. When I got home I happened to say to Mother: ’I saw poor old Biddy Maloney doddering round that wretched field as I came along’.

“‘What?’ said my mother, ’why, your father was called to her, as she was dying, hours ago, and she’s not been out of her bed for weeks.’ When my father came in, I learned that Biddy was dead an hour before I saw her before I left the railway station in fact! What do you make of that? Is there any ’explanation’?”

“Some other old lady,” suggested Mrs. Dearman.

“No. There was nobody else in those parts mistakable for Biddy Maloney, and no other old woman was in or near the house while my father was there. We sifted the matter carefully. It was Biddy Maloney and no one else.”

“Auto-suggestion. Visualization on the retina of an idea in the mind. Optical illusion,” hazarded Mrs. Dearman.

“No good. I hadn’t realized I was approaching Biddy Maloney’s cottage until I saw her coming out of it and I certainly hadn’t thought of Biddy Maloney until my eye fell upon her. And it’s a funny optical illusion that deceives one into seeing an old lady opening gates, crossing railways and limping away into fenced fields.”

“H’m! What was the other case?” asked Mrs. Dearman, turning to Mr. Ross-Ellison.

“That happened here in India at a station called Duri, away in the Northern Presidency, where I was then er living for a time. On the day after my arrival I went to call on Malet-Marsac to whom I had letters of introduction political business and, as he was out, but certain to return in a minute or two from Parade, I sat me down in a comfortable chair in the verandah ”

“And went to sleep?” interrupted Mrs. Dearman.

‘"I nevah sleep,’” quoted Mr. Ross-Ellison, “and I had no time, if any inclination. Scarcely indeed had I seated myself, and actually while I was placing my topi on an adjacent stool, a lady emerged from a distant door at the end of the verandah and walked towards me. I can tell you I was mighty surprised, for not only was Captain Malet-Marsac a lone bachelor and a misogynist of blameless life, but the lady looked as though she had stepped straight out of an Early Victorian phonograph-album. She had on a crinoline sort of dress, a deep lace collar, spring-sidey sort of boots, mittens, and a huge cameo brooch. Also she had long ringlets. Her face is stamped on my memory and I could pick her out from a hundred women similarly dressed, or her picture from a hundred others....”

“What did you do?” asked Mrs. Dearman, whose neglected ice-pudding was fast being submerged in a pink lake of its own creation.

“Do? Nothing. I grabbed my topi, stood up, bowed and looked silly.”

“And what did the lady do?”

“Came straight on, taking no notice whatsoever of me, until she reached the steps leading into the porch and garden.... She passed down these and out of my sight.... That is the plain statement of an actual fact. Have you any ‘explanation’ to offer?”

“Well what about a lady staying there, unexpectedly and unbeknownst (to the station), trying on a get-up for a Fancy Dress Ball. Going as ’My ancestress’ or something?” suggested Mrs. Dearman.

“Exactly what I told myself, though I knew it was nothing of the kind.... Well, five minutes later Malet-Marsac rode up the drive and we were soon fraternizing over cheroots and cold drinks.... As I was leaving, an idea struck me, and I saw a way to ask a question which was burning my tongue, without being too rudely inquisitive.

“‘By the way,’ said I, ’I fear I did not send in the right number of visiting cards, but they told me there was no lady here, so I only sent in one for you.’

“‘There is no lady here,’ he replied, eyeing me queerly. ’What made you think you had been misinformed?’

“‘Well,’ said I bluntly, ’a lady came out of the end room just now, walked down the verandah, and went out into the garden. You’d better see if anything is missing as she’s not an inhabitant!’

“‘No there won’t be anything missing,’ he replied. ’Did she wear a crinoline and a general air of last century?’

“‘She did,’ said I.

“‘Our own private ghost,’ was the answer and it was the sort of statement I had anticipated. Now I solemnly assure you that at that time I had never heard, read, nor dreamed that there was a ‘ghost’ in this bungalow, nor in Duri nor in the whole Northern Presidency for that matter....

“‘What’s the story?’ I asked, of course.

“‘Mutin,’ said Malet-Marsac. ’Husband shot on the parade-ground. She got the news and marched straight to the spot. They cut her in pieces as she held his body in her arms. Lots of people have seen her anywhere between that room and the parade-ground.’

“’Then you have to believe in ghosts in Duri, or how do you account for it?’ I asked.

“‘I don’t bother my head,’ he replied. ’But I have seen that poor lady a good many times. And no one told me a word about her until after I had seen her.’”

And then Mrs. Dearman suddenly rose, as her hostess “caught” the collective female eye of the table.

“Was all that about the ‘ghosts’ of the old Irishwoman and the Early Victorian Lady true, you fellows?” asked John Bruce, the Professor of Engineering, after coffee, cigars and the second glass of port had reconciled the residue or sediment to the departure of the sterner sex.

“Didn’t you hear me say my story was true?” replied Colonel Jackson brusquely. “It was absolutely and perfectly true.”

“Same here,” added Mr. Ross-Ellison.

“Then on two separate occasions you two have seen what you can only believe to be the ghosts of dead people?”

“On one occasion I have, without any possibility of error or doubt, seen the ghost of a dead person,” said Colonel Jackson.

“Have you ever come across any other thoroughly substantiated cases of ghost-seeing cases which have really convinced you, Colonel?” queried Mr. Ross-Ellison being deeply interested in the subject by reason of queer powers and experiences of his own.

“Yes. Many in which I fully believe, and one about which I am certain. A very interesting case and a very cruel tragedy.”

“Would you mind telling me about it?” asked Mr. Ross-Ellison.

“Pleasure. More I’ll give you as interesting and convincing a ’human document’ about it as ever you read, if you like.”

“I shall be eternally grateful,” replied the other.

“It was a sad and sordid business. The man, whose last written words I’ll give you to read, was a Sergeant-Major in the Volunteer Rifles (also at Duri where I was stationed, as you know) and he was a gentleman born and bred, poor chap.” ["Lawrence-Smith,” murmured Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison with an involuntary movement of surprise. His eyebrows rose and his jaw fell.] “Yes, he was that rare bird a gentleman-ranker who remained a gentleman and a ranker and became a fine soldier. He called himself Lawrence-Smith and owned a good old English name that you’d recognize if I mentioned it and you’d be able to name some of his relatives too. He was kicked out of Sandhurst for striking one of the subordinate staff under extreme provocation. The army was in his blood and bones, and he enlisted.”

“Excuse me,” interrupted Mr. Ross-Ellison, “you speak of this Sergeant-Major Lawrence-Smith in the past tense. Is he dead then?”

“He is dead,” replied Colonel Jackson. “Did you know him?”

“I believe I saw him at Duri,” answered Mr. Ross-Ellison with an excellent assumption of indifference. “What’s the story?”

“I’ll give you his own tale on paper let me have it back and, mind you, every single word of it is Gospel truth. The man was a gentleman, an educated, thoughtful, sober chap, and as sane as you or I. I got to know him well he was in hospital, with blood-poisoning from panther-bite, for a time and we became friends. Actual friends, I mean. Used to play golf with him. (You remember the Duri Links.) In mufti, you’d never have dreamed for a moment that he was not a Major or a Colonel. Army life had not coarsened him in the slightest, and he kept some lounge-suits and mess-kit by Poole. Many a good Snob of my acquaintance has left my house under the impression that the Lawrence-Smith he had met there, and with whom he had been hail-fellow-well-met, was his social equal or superior.

“He simply was a refined and educated gentleman and that’s all there is about it. Well you’ll read his statement and, as you read, you may tell yourself that I am as convinced of its truth as I am of anything in this world.... He was dead when I got to him.

“The stains, on the backs of some of the sheets and on the front of the last one, are blood stains....”

And at this point their host suggested the propriety of joining the ladies....

Colonel Jackson gave Mr. Ross-Ellison a “lift” in his powerful motor as far as his bungalow, entered, and a few minutes later emerged with a long and fat envelope.

“Here you are,” said he. “I took it upon myself to annex the papers as I was his friend. Let’s have ’em back. No need for me to regard them as ‘private and confidential’ so far as I can see, poor chap. Good-night.”

Having achieved the haven of loose Pathan trousers and a muslin shirt (worn over them) in the privacy of his bed-room, Mr. Ross-Ellison, looking rather un-English, sat on a camp-cot (he never really liked chairs) and read, as follows, from a sheaf of neatly-written (and bloodstained) sheets of foolscap.

I have come to the point at which I decide to stop. I have had enough. But I should like to ask one or two questions.

1. Why has a man no right to quit a world in which he no longer desires to live? 2. Why should Evil be allowed to triumph? 3. Why should people who cannot see spirit forms be so certain that such do not exist, when none but an ignorant fool argues, “I believe in what I can see”?

With regard to the first question I maintain that a man has a perfect right to “take” the life that was “given” him (without his own consent or desire), provided it is not an act of cowardice nor an evasion of just punishment or responsibility. I would add provided also that he does not, in so doing, basely desert his duty, those who are in any way dependent on him, or those who really love him.

I detest that idiotic phrase “while of unsound mind”. I am as sound in mind as any man living, but because I end an unbearable state of affairs, and take the only step I can think of as likely to give me peace I shall be written down mad. Moreover should I fail in my attempt to kill myself (which I shall not) I should be prosecuted as a criminal!

To me, albeit I have lived long under strict discipline and regard true discipline as the first essential of moral, physical, mental, and social training, to me it seems a gross and unwarrantable interference with the liberty of the individual to deny him sufficient captaincy of his soul for him to be free to control it at the dictates of his conscience, and to keep it Here or to send it There as may seem best. Surely the implanted love of life and fear of death are sufficient safeguards without any legislation or insolent arrogant interference between a man and his own ego? Anyhow, such are my views, and in perfect soundness of mind and body, after mature reflection and with full confidence in my right so to do, I am about to end my life here.

As to the second question, “Why should Evil be allowed to triumph?” I confess that my mind cannot argue in a circle and say, “You are born full of Original Sin, and if you sin you are Damned” a vicious circle drawn for me by the gloomy, haughty, insincere and rather unintelligent young gentleman whom I respectfully salute as Chaplain, and who regards me and every other non-commissioned soldier as a Common, if not Low, person.

He would not even answer my queries by means of the good old loop-hole, “It is useless to appeal to Reason if you cannot to Faith” and so beg the question. He said that things were because the Lord said they were, and that it was impious to doubt it. More impious was it, I gathered, to doubt him, and to allude to Criticisms he had never read.

His infallible “proof” was “It is in the Bible”.

Possibly I shall shortly know why an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Impeccable Deity allows this world to be the Hell it is, even if there be no actual Hell for the souls of his errant Creatures (in spite of the statements of the Chaplain who appears to have exclusive information on the subject, inaccessible to laymen, and to rest peacefully assured of a Real Hell for the wicked, nonconforming, and vulgar).

At present I cannot understand and I do not know though I am informed and infused with a burning and reverent desire to understand and to know why Evil should be allowed to triumph, as in my own case, as well as in those of millions of others, it does. And thirdly, why does the man who would never deny beauty in a poem or picture because he failed to see it while others did, deny that immaterial forms of the dead exist, because he has never seen one, though others have?

I know of so many many men who would blush to be called “I-believe-what-I-see men,” who yet laugh to scorn the bare idea of the materialization and visualization of visitants from the spirit world, because they have never seen one. I have so often met the argument, “The ghost of a man I might conceive but I can not conceive the appearance of the ghost of a pair of trousers or of a top-hat,” offered as though it were unanswerable. Surely the spirit, aura, shade, ghost, soul, ego what you will can permeate and penetrate and pervade clothing and other matter as well as flesh?

Well, once again, I do not know, and yet I have seen, not once but repeatedly, not by moonlight in a churchyard, but under the Indian sun on a parade-ground, the ghost of a man and of all his accoutrements, of a rifle, of a horse and all a horse’s trappings.

I have been a teetotaller for years, I have never had sunstroke and I am as absolutely sane as ever a man was.

And further I am in no sense remorseful, repentant, or “dogged by the spectre of an evil deed”.

I killed Burker intentionally. Were he alive again I would kill him again. I punished him myself because the law could not punish him as he deserved, and I in no way regret or deplore my just and judicial action. There are deeds a gentleman must resent and punish with the extreme penalty. No, it is in no sense a case of the self-tormented wretch driven mad by the awful hallucinations of his guilty, unhinged mind. I am no haunted murderer pursued by phantoms and illusions, believing himself always in the presence of his victim’s ghost.

All people who have read anything, have read of the irresistible fascination that the scene of the murder has for the murderer, of the way in which the victim “haunts” the slayer, and of how the truth that “murder will out” is really based on the fact that the murderer is his own most dangerous accuser by reason of his life of terror, remorse, and terrible hallucination.

My case is in no wise parallel.

I am absolutely without fear, regret, remorse, repentance, dread or terror in the matter of my killing Sergeant Burker. Exactly how and why I killed him, and how and why I am about to kill myself, I will now set forth, without the slightest exaggeration, special pleading or any other deviation from the truth....

I am to my certain knowledge the eighth consecutive member of my family, in the direct line, to follow the profession of arms, but am the first to do so without bearing a commission. My father died young in the rank of Captain, my grandfather led his own regiment in the Crimea, my great-grandfather was a Lieutenant-General, and, if I told you my real name, you could probably state something that he did at Waterloo.

I went to Sandhurst and I was expelled from Sandhurst very rightly and justly for an offence, or rather the culminating offence of a series of offences, that were everything but mean, dishonest or underhand. I was wild, hasty, undisciplined and I was lost for want of a father to thrash me as a boy, and by possession of a most loving and devoted mother who worshipped, spoiled and ruined me.

I enlisted under an assumed name in my late father’s (and grandfather’s) old Regiment of Foot and quickly rose to the rank of Sergeant-Major.

I might have had a commission in South Africa but I decided that I preferred ruling in hell to serving in heaven, and declined to be a grey-haired Lieutenant and a nuisance to the Officers’ Mess of the Corps I would not leave until compelled.

In time I was compelled and I became Sergeant-Major of the Volunteer Rifle Corps here and husband of a well de mortuis nil nisi bonum.

Why I married I don’t know.

The English girl of the class from which soldiers are drawn never attracted me in the very least, and I simply could not have married one, though a paragon of virtue and compendium of housewifely qualities.

Admirable and pretty as Miss Higgs, Miss Bloggs, or Miss Muggins might be, my youthful training prevented my seeing beyond her fringe, finger-nails, figure, and aspirates, to her solid excellences; and from sergeants’-dances I returned quite heart-whole and still unplighted to the Colonel’s cook. But Dolores De Souza was different.

There was absolutely nothing to offend the most fastidious taste in her speech, appearance, or manners. She was convent-bred, accomplished, refined, gentle, worthless and wicked. The good Sisters of the Society of the Broken Heart had polished the exterior of the Eurasian orphan very highly but the polish was a thin veneer on very cheap and unseasoned wood.

It is a strange fact that, while I could respect the solid virtues of the aspirateless Misses Higgs, Bloggs or Muggins, I could never have married one of them; yet, while I knew Dolores to be a heartless flirt, and more than suspected her to be of most unrigid principle, I was infatuated with her dark beauty, her grace, her wiles and witchery and asked her to become my wife.

The good Sisters of the Society of the Broken Heart had taught Dolores to sing beautifully, to play upon the piano and the guitar, to embroider, to paint mauve roses on pink tambourines and many other useful arts, graces and accomplishments but they had not taught her practical morality nor anything of cooking, marketing, plain sewing, house-cleaning or anything else of house-keeping. However, having been bred as I had been bred, I could take the form and let the substance go, accept the shapely husks and shout not for the grain, and prefer a pretty song, and a rose in black hair over a shell-like ear, to a square meal. I fear the average Sergeant-Major would have beaten Dolores within a week of matrimony, but I strove to make loss, discomfort, and disappointment a discipline, and music, silk dresses and daintiness an aesthetic re-training to a barrack-blunted mind.

In justice to Dolores I should make it clear that she was not of the slatternly, dirty, lazy, half-breed type that pigs in a peignoir from twelve to twelve and snores again from midnight to midday. She was trim and dainty, used good perfume or none, rose early and went in the garden, loathed cheap and showy trash whether in dress, jewellery, or furniture; and was incapable of wearing fine shoes over holey stockings or a silk gown over dirty linen. No there was nothing to offend the fastidious about Dolores, but there was everything to offend the good house-keeper and the moralist.

Frequently she would provide no dinner in order that we might be compelled to dine in public at a restaurant or a hotel, a thing she loved to do, and she would often send out for costly sweets and pastry, drink champagne (very moderately, I admit), and generally behave as though she were the wife of a man of means.

And she was an arrant, incorrigible, shameless flirt.

Well I do not know that a virtuous vulgar dowd is preferable to a wicked winsome witch of refined habits and person, and I should probably have gone quietly on to bankruptcy without any row or rupture, but for Burker. Having been bred in a “gentle” home I naturally took the attitude of “as you please, my dear Dolores” and refrained from bullying when quiet indication of the inevitable end completely failed. Whether she intended to act in a reasonable manner and show some wifely traits when my L250 of legacy and savings was quite dissipated I do not know. Burker came before that consummation.

A number of gentlemen joined the Duri Volunteer Corps and formed a Mounted Infantry troop, and, though I am a good horseman, I was not competent to train the troop, as I had never enjoyed any experience of mounted military work of any kind. So Sergeant Burker, late of the 54th Lancers, was transferred to Duri as Instructor of the Mounted Infantry Troop. Naturally I did what I could to make him comfortable and, till his bungalow was furnished after a fashion, gave him our spare room.

Sergeant Barker was the ideal Cavalryman and the ideal breaker of hearts, hearts of the Mary-Ann and Eliza-Jane order.

He was a black-haired, blue-eyed Irishman with a heart as black as his hair, and language as blue as his eye a handsome, plausible, selfish, wicked devil with scarcely a virtue but pride and high courage. I disliked him at first sight, and Dolores fell in love with him equally quickly, I am sure.

I don’t think he had a solitary gentlemanly instinct.

Being desirous of learning Mounted Infantry work, I attended all his drills, riding as troop-leader, and, between close attention to him and close study of the drill-book, did not let the gentlemen in the ranks know that, in the beginning, I knew as little about it as they did.

And an uncommonly good troop he soon made of it, too.

Of course it was excellent material, all good riders and good shots, and well horsed.

Burker and I were mounted by the R.H.A. Battery here, and the three drills we held, weekly, were seasons of delight to a horse-lover like myself.

Now the horse I had was a high-spirited, powerful animal, and he possessed the trait, very common among horses, of hating to be pressed behind the saddle. Turning to look behind while “sitting-easy” one day I rested my right hand on his back behind the saddle and he immediately lashed out furiously with both hind legs. I did not realize for the moment what was upsetting him but quickly discovered that I had only to press his back to send his hoofs out like stones from a sling. I then remembered other similar cases and that I had also read of this curious fact about horses something to do with pressure on the kidneys I believe.

One day Burker was unexpectedly absent and I took the drill, finding myself quite competent and au fait.

The same evening I went to my wife’s wardrobe, she being out, to try and find the keys of the sideboard. I knew they frequently reposed in the pocket of her dressing-gown.

In the said pocket they were and so was a letter in the crude large handwriting of Sergeant Burker.

I did not read it, but I did not see the necessity of a correspondence between my wife and such a man as I knew Sergeant Burker to be. They met often enough, in all conscience, to say what they might have to say to each other.

At dinner I remarked casually: “I shouldn’t enter into a correspondence with Burker if I were you, Dolly. His reputation isn’t over savoury and ” but, before I could say more, my wife was literally screaming with rage, calling me “Spy,” “Liar,” “Coward,” and demanding to know what I insinuated and of what I accused her. I replied that I had accused her of nothing at all, and merely offered advice in the matter of correspondence with Burker. I explained how I had come to find the letter and stated that I had not read it.

“Then how do you know that we ” she began, and suddenly stopped.

“That you what?” I inquired.

“Nothing,” she said.

At the next Sergeants’ Dance at the Institute I did not like Burker’s manner to my wife at all. It was well, amorous, and tinged with a shade of proprietorship. I distinctly heard him call her “Dolly,” and equally distinctly saw an expressively affectionate look in her eyes as he hugged her in the waltzes whereof they indulged in no less than five.

My position was awkward and unpleasant. I loathe a row or a scene unspeakably though I delight in fighting when that pastime is legitimate and I was brought into daily contact with the ruffian and I disliked him intensely.

I was very averse from the course of forbidding him the house and thus insulting my wife by implication since she obviously enjoyed his society and descending to pit myself against the greasy cad in a struggle for a woman’s favour, and that woman my own wife. Nor could I conscientiously take the line of, “If she desires to go to the Devil let her,” for a man has as much responsibility for his wife as for his children, and it is equally his duty to guide and control her and them. Women may vote and may legislate for men but on men they will ever depend and rely.

No, the position of carping, jealous husband was one that I could not fill, and I determined to say nothing, do nothing and be watchful watchful, that is, to avoid exposing her to temptation. I did my best, but I was away from home a good deal, visiting the out-station detachments of the Corps.

Then, one day, the wretched creature I called “butler” came to me with an air of great mystery and said: “Sahib, Sergeant Burker Sahib sending Mem Sahib bundle of flowers and chitti inside and diamond ring yesterday. His boy telling me and I seeing. He often coming here too when Sahib out. Both wicked peoples.”

I raised my hand to knock his lies down his throat and dropped it. They were not lies, I knew, and the fellow had been faithful to me for many years and the folly of childish human vanity I felt he knew I was a “gentleman,” and I liked him for it.

I paid him his wages then and there, gave him a present and a good testimonial and discharged him. He wept real tears and shook with sobs of grief easy grief, but very genuine.

When Dolores came home from the Bandstand I said quietly: “Show me the jewellery Burker sent you, Dolly. I am very much in earnest, so don’t bluster.”

She seemed about to faint and looked very frightened perhaps my face was more expressive than a gentleman’s should be.

“It was only a little thing for my birthday,” she whined. “Can’t I keep it? Don’t be a tyrant or a fool.”

“Your next birthday or your last?” I asked. “Please get it at once. We’ll settle matters quietly and finally.”

I fear the poor girl had visions of the doorstep and a closed door. Two, perhaps, for I am sure Burker would not have taken her in if I had turned her out, and she may have thought the same.

It was a diamond ring, and the scoundrel must have given a couple of months’ pay for it if he had paid for it at all. I thrust aside the sudden conviction that Burker’s own taste could not have been responsible for its choice and that it was selected by my wife.

“Why should he give you this, Dolores?” I asked. “Will you tell me or must I go to him?” And then she burst into tears and flung herself at my feet, begging for mercy.

Mercy!

Qui s’excuse s’accuse.

What should I do?

To cast her out was to murder her soul quickly and her body slowly, and
I could foresee her career with prophetic eye and painful clearness.

And what could the Law do for me?

Publish our shame and perhaps brand me that wretched thing the willingly deceived and complaisant husband.

What could I do by challenging Burker?

He was a champion man-at-arms, a fine boxer, and a younger, stronger man, I should merely experience humiliation and defeat. What could I do?

If I said, “Go and live with your Burker,” I should be committing a bigger crime than hers, for if he did take her in, it would not be for long.

I sat the night through, pondered the question carefully, looked at it from all points of view and decided that Burker must die. Also that he must not drag me to jail or the scaffold as he went to his doom. If I shot him and was punished, Dolores would become a well, as I have said, her soul would die quickly and her body slowly. I had married Dolores and I must do what lay in my power to protect Dolores. But I simply could not kill the hound in some stealthy secret manner and wait for the footsteps of warrant-armed police for the rest of my life.

What could I do? Or rather for the question had narrowed to that how could I kill him?

And as the sun struck upon my eyes at dawn, an idea struck upon my mind.

I would leave it to Fate and if Fate willed it so, Burker should die.

If Burker stood behind my charger, Fate sat with down-turned thumb.

I would not seek the opportunity but, by God, I would take it if it offered.

If it did not, I would go to Burker and say to him quietly: “Burker, you must leave this station at once and never see or communicate with my wife in any way. Otherwise I have to kill you, Burker to execute you, you understand.” ...

A native syce from the Artillery lines led my charger into the little compound of my tiny bungalow.

Having buckled on my belt I went out, patted him, and gave him a lump of sugar. He nuzzled me for more, and, as he did so, I placed my hand on his back, behind the saddle, and pressed. He lashed out wildly.

I then trotted across the maidan to the Volunteer Headquarters and parade-ground.

Several gentlemen of the Mounted Infantry were waiting about, some standing by their horses, some getting bandoliers, belts, and rifles, some cantering their horses round the ground.

Sergeant Burker strode out of the Orderly Boom.

“Morning, Smith,” said he. “How’s the Missus?”

I looked him in the eye and made no reply.

He laughed, as jeering, evil, and caddish a laugh as I have ever heard. I almost forgot my purpose and had actually turned toward the armoury for a rifle and cartridge when I remembered and controlled my rage.

If I shot him, then and there, I must go to the scaffold or to jail forthwith, and Dolores must inevitably go to a worse fate. Had I been sure that she could have kept straight, Burker would have been shot, then and there.

“Fall in,” he shouted, but did not mount his horse.

The gentlemen assembled with their horses and faced him in line, dismounted, I in front of the centre of the troop. How clearly I can see every feature and detail of that morning’s scene, and hear every word and sound.

“Tell off by sections,” commanded Burker.

“One, two, three, four one, two, three, four....”

There were exactly six sections.

“Flanks of sections, proof.”

“Section leaders, proof.”

“Centre man, proof.”

“Prepare to mount.”

“Mount.”

“Sections right.”

“Sections left.”

The last two words were the last words Burker ever spoke. Passing on foot along the line of mounted men, to inspect saddlery, accoutrements, and the adjustment of rifle-buckets and slings, he halted immediately behind me, where I sat on my charger in front of the centre of the troop.

I could not have placed him more exactly with my own hands. Fate sat with down-pointing thumb.

Turning round, as though to look at the troop, I rested my hand on my horse’s back just behind the saddle and pressed hard. He lashed out with both hoofs and Sergeant Burker dropped and never moved again.

The base of his skull was smashed like an egg, and his back was broken like a dry stick....

The terrible accident roused wide sympathy with the unfortunate man, the local reporter used all his adjectives, and a military funeral was given to the soldier who had died in the execution of his duty.

On reaching home, after satisfying myself at the Station Hospital that the man was dead, I said to my poor, pale and red-eyed wife:

“Dolores, Sergeant Burker met with an accident this morning on parade. He is dead. Let us never refer to him again.”

She fainted.

I spent that night also in meditation, questioning myself and examining my soul with every honest endeavour to be not a self-deceiver.

I came to the conclusion that I had acted rightly and in the only way in which a gentleman could act. I had snatched Dolores from his foul clutches, I had punished him without depriving Dolores of my protection, and I had avenged the stain on my honour.

“You have committed a treacherous cowardly murder,” whispered the Fiend in my ear.

“You are a liar,” I replied. “I did not fear the man and I took this course solely on account of Dolores. I was strong enough to accept this position and to risk the accusation of murder, from my conscience, from the Devil, or from man.”

Any doubt I might otherwise have had was forestalled and inhibited by the obvious Fate that placed Burker in the one spot favourable to my scheme of punishment.

God had willed it?

God had not prevented it.

Surely God was consenting unto it....

And Dolores? I would forgive her and offer her the choice of remaining with me or leaving me and receiving a half of my income and possessions both alternatives being contingent upon good conduct.

At dawn I prepared tea for her, and entered our bedroom. Dolores had wound a towel round her neck, twisted the ends tightly and suffocated herself.

She had been dead for hours....

At the police inquiry, held the same day, I duly lied as to the virtues of the “deceased,” and the utter impossibility of assigning any reason for the rash and deplorable act. The usual smug stereotyped verdict was pronounced, and, in addition to expressing their belief that the suicide was committed “while of unsound mind,” the officials expressed much sympathy with the bereaved husband.

Dolores was buried that evening and I returned to an empty house.

I believe opinion had been divided as to whether I was callous or “stunned” but the sight of her little shoes caused pains in my throat and eyes. Had Burker been then alive I would have killed him with my hands and teeth. Yes, teeth.

I spent that night in packing every possession and trace of Dolores into her boxes, and then in trying to persuade myself that I should have acted differently.

I could not do so. I had acted for the best so let God who gave me free-will, intelligence, conscience and opportunity, approve the deed or take the blame.

And let God remember how that opportunity came so convincingly so impellingly and if He would judge me and ask for my defence I would ask him who sent Burker here, and who placed him on that fatal spot?

Does God sit only in judgment?

Does God calmly watch His creatures walking blindfold to the Pit struggling to tear away the bandage as they walk? Can He only judge, and can He never help?

“Pray?”

Is God a petty-minded “jealous” God to be propitiated like the gods of the heathen?

Must we continually ask, or, not asking, not receive?

And if we know not to ask aright and to demand the best and highest?

Cannot the well-fed, well-read, well-paid Chaplain give advice?

“God knoweth best. Ask unceasingly. Pray always.”

Why? if. He knows best, is All Merciful, All Powerful?

“Praise?”

Is God a child, a savage, a woman? Shall I offer adulation that would sicken me.

“God is our Father which art in heaven.”

Would I have my son praise me to my face continually or at all. Would I compel him to pester me with demands for what he desired, good, bad and indifferent?

And would I give him what he asked regardless of what was best for him or say, “If you ask not, you receive not?” Give me a God finer and greater and juster and nobler than myself something higher than the Chaplain’s jealous, capricious, inconsequent and illogical God. Anthropomorphism!

Is there a God at all?

I shall soon know.

If so

Oh Thou, who man of baser earth didst make
And ev’n with Paradise devised the Snake,
For all the Sin the face of wretched man
Is black with Man’s forgiveness give and take!

At dawn I said aloud:

“This Chapter is closed. The story of Burker and Dolores is written. I may now strive to forget.”

I was wrong.

Major Jackson of the R.A.M.C. came to see me soon after daylight. He gave me an opiate and I slept all that day and night. I went on parade next morning, fresh, calm, and cool and saw Burker riding toward the group of gentlemen who were awaiting the signal to “fall in".

I say I was fresh, calm, and cool.

I was.

And there was Burker looking exactly as in life, save for a slight nebulosity, a very faint vagueness of outline, and a hint of transparency.

I had been instructed by the Adjutant to assume the post of Instructor (as the end of the Mounted Infantry drill season was near) and I blew the “rally” on my whistle as many of the gentlemen were riding about, and shouted the command: “Fall in”.

Twenty living men and one dead faced me, twenty dismounted and one mounted. I called the corporal in charge of the armoury.

“How many on parade?” I asked.

He looked puzzled, counted, and said:

“Why twenty, ain’t there?”

I numbered the troop.

Twenty and Burker.

“Tell off by sections.”

Five sections and Burker.

“Sections right.”

A column of five sections and Burker, in the rear.

I called out the section-leader of Number One section.

“Are the sections correctly proved?” I asked, and added: “Put the troop back in line and tell-off again”.

“Five sections, correct,” he reported.

I held that drill, with five sections of living men, and a single file of dead, who manoeuvred to my word.

When I gave the order “With Numbers Three for action dismount,” or “Right-hand men, for action dismount,” Burker remained mounted. When I dismounted the whole troop, Burker remained mounted. Otherwise he drilled precisely as Number Twenty-one would have drilled in a troop of twenty-one men.

Was I frightened? I do not know.

At first my heart certainly pounded as though it would leap from my body, and I felt dazed, lost, and shocked.

I think I was frightened not of Burker so much as of the unfamiliar, the unknown, the impossible.

How would you feel if your piano suddenly began to play of itself? You would be alarmed and afraid probably, not frightened of the piano, but of the fact.

A door could not frighten you but you would surely be alarmed at its persistently opening, each time you shut, locked, and bolted it, if it acted thus.

Of Burker I had no fear but I was perturbed by the fact that the dead could ride with the living.

When I gave the order “Dismiss” at the end of the parade Burker rode away, as he had always done, in the direction of his bungalow.

Returning to my lonely house, I sat me down and pondered this appalling event that had come like a torrent, sweeping away familiar landmarks of experience, idea, and belief. I was conscious of a dull anger against Burker and then against God.

Why should He allow Burker to haunt me?...

Why should Evil triumph?...

Was I haunted? Or was it, after all, but a hallucination due to grief, trouble, and the drug of the opiate?

I sat and brooded until I thought I could hear the voices of Burker and
Dolores in converse.

This I knew to be hallucination, pure and simple, and I went to see my friend (if he will let me call him what he is in the truest and highest sense) Major Jackson of the R.A.M.C.

He took me for a long ride, kept me to dinner, and manufactured a job for me a piece of work that would occupy and tire me.

He assured me that the Burker affair was pure hallucination and staked his professional reputation that the image of Burker came upon my retina from within and not from without. “The shock of the deaths of your wife and your friend on consecutive days has unhinged you, and very naturally so,” he said.

Of course I did not tell him that I had killed Burker, though I should have liked to do so. I felt I had no right to put him in the position of having to choose between denouncing me and condoning a murder compounding a felony.

Nor did I see any reason for confessing to the Police what I had done (even though Dolores was dead) and finishing my career on the scaffold.

One owes something to one’s ancestors as well as to oneself. Well, perhaps it was a hallucination. I would wait.

At the next drill Burker was present and rode as Number Three in Section Six.

As there were twenty-three (living) on parade I ordered Number Twenty-three to ride as Number Four of his section and leave a blank file.

Burker rode in that blank file and drilled so, throughout save that he would not dismount.

Once, as the troop rode in column of sections, I fell to the rear and, coming up behind, struck with all my might at that slightly nebulous figure, with its faint vagueness of outline and hint of transparency.

My heavy cutting-whip whistled and touched nothing. I was as one who beats the air. Section Six must have thought me mad.... Twice again the dead man drilled with the living, and each time I described what happened to Major Jackson.

“It is a persistent hallucination,” said he; “you must go on leave.”

“I won’t run from Burker, nor from a hallucination,” I replied.

Then came the end.

At the next drill, twenty-one gentlemen were present and Number Twenty-one, the Sessions Judge of Duri, a Scot, kept staring with looks of amazement and alarm at Burker, who rode as Number Four on his flank, making an odd file into a skeleton section. I was certain that he saw Burker.

As the gentlemen “dismissed” after parade, the Judge rode up to me and, with a white face, demanded:

“Who the devil was that rode with me as Number Twenty-four? It was it was like Sergeant Burker.”

“It was Sergeant Burker, Sir,” said I.

“I knew it was,” he replied, and added: “Man, you and I are fey.”

“Will you tell Major Jackson of this, Sir?” I begged. “He knows I have seen Burker’s ghost here before, and tells me it is a hallucination.”

“I’ll go and see him now.” he replied. “He is an old friend of mine, and he’s a damned good doctor. Man you and I are fey.” He rode to where his trap, with its spirited cob, was awaiting him, dismounted and drove off.

As everybody knows, Mr. Blake of the Indian Civil Service, Sessions Judge of Duri, was thrown from his trap and killed. It happened five minutes after he had said to me, with a queer look in his eyes, and a queer note in his voice, “Man! you and I are fey".... So it is no hallucination and I am haunted by Burker’s ghost. Very good. I will fight Burker on his own ground.

My ghost shall haunt Burker’s ghost or I shall be at peace.

Though the religion of the Chaplain has failed me, the religion of my Mother, taught to me at her knee, has implanted in me an ineradicable belief in the ultimate justice of things, and the unquenchable hope of “somehow good”.

I am about to go before my Maker or to obliteration and oblivion. If the former, I am prepared to say to Him: “You made me a man. I have played the man. I look to you for justice, and that is compensation and not ‘forgiveness’. Much less is it punishment. You have treated me ill and given me no help. You have bestowed free-will without free-dom. Compensate me or know Yourself unjust.”

To a servant or child who spoke so to me and with equal reason, I would reply:

“Compensation is due to you and not ’forgiveness’ much less punishment,” and I would act accordingly.... Why should I cringe to God and why should He love a cringer more than I do?

God help Men and Women and such Children as are doomed to grow up to be Men and Women.

As I finish this sentence I shall put my revolver in my mouth and seek Justice or Peace....

“Bad luck,” murmured Mr. Robin Ross-Ellison, “that was the man of all men for me! A gentleman, wishful to die.... That is the sort that does things when swords are out and bullets fly. Seeks a gory grave and gets a V.C. instead. He and Mike Malet-Marsac and I would have put a polish on the new Gungapur Fusiliers.... Rough luck....”

He was greatly disappointed, for his experiences in the bazaars, market-places, secret-meeting houses, and the bowers of Hearts’ Delights, the Rialtos of Gungapur (he disguised, now as an Afghan horse-dealer, now as a sepoy, now as a Pathan money-lender, again as a gold-braided, velvet waistcoated, swaggering swashbuckler from the Border) his experiences were disquieting, were such as to make him push on preparations, perfect plans, and work feverishly at the “polishing” of his re-organized Corps.

Also the reports of his familiar, a Somali yclept Moussa Isa, were disquieting, disturbing to a lover of the Empire who foresaw the Empire at war in Europe.

Moussa Isa also knew that there was talk among Pathan horse-dealers and budmashes of the coming of one Ilderim the Weeper, a mullah of great influence and renown, and talk, moreover, among men of other race, of a Great Conspiracy.

Moussa was bidden to take service as a mill-coolie in one of Colonel Dearman’s mills, and to report on the views and attitude of the thousands who laboured therein. This he did and there learnt many interesting facts.

SECTION 4. MR. AND MRS. CORNELIUS GOSLING-GREEN.

It was Sunday and therefore John Bruce, the Engineering College Professor, was exceptionally busy. On a-week-day he only had to deliver his carefully prepared lectures, interview students, read and return essays, take the chair at meetings of college societies, coach one or two “specialists,” superintend the games on the college gymkhana ground, interview seekers after truth and perverters of the same, write letters on various matters of college business, visit the hostel, set question papers and correct answers, attend common-room meetings, write articles for the college magazine and papers for the Scientific, Philosophical, Shakespearean, Mathematical, Debating, Literary, Historical, Students’, Old Boys’, or some other “union” and, if God willed, get a little exercise and private study at his beloved “subject” and invention, before preparing for the morrow.

On Sundays, the thousand and one things crowded out of the programme were to be cleared up, his home mail was to be written, and then arrears of work had to be attacked.

At four o’clock he addressed Roy Pittenweem and Mrs. MacDougall, his dogs, and said:

“There’s a bloomin’ bun-snatch somewhere, you fellers, don’t it?”. Though a Professor and one of the most keen and earnest workmen in India, his own college blazers were not quite worn out, and Life, the great Artist, had not yet done much sketching on the canvas of his face in spite of his daily contact with the Science Professor, William Greatorex Bonnett, B.A., widely known as the Mad Hatter, the greatest of whose many great achievements is his avoidance of death at the hands of his colleagues and acquaintance.

Receiving no reply beyond a wink and a waggle, he dropped his blue pencil, rose, and went to the table sacred to litter; and from a wild welter of books, pipes, papers, golf-balls, hats, cigar-boxes, dog-collars, switches, cartridges and other sediment, he extracted a large gilt-edged card and studied it without enthusiasm or bias.

“Large coat of arms,” he murmured “patience no a pay-sheet on a monument asking for time; item a hand, recently washed; ditto, a dickey bird possibly pigeon plucked proper or gull argent; guinea-pig regardant and expectant; supporters, two bottliwallahs rampant. Crest, a bum-boat flottant, and motto ‘Cinq-cento-percentum’. All done in gold. Likewise in gold and deboshed gothic, the legend ’Sir and Lady Fuggilal Potipharpar, At Home. To meet Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Gosling-Green, M.P. Five p.m. C.T.’ ... Now what the devil, Roy Pittenweem, is C.T.? Is it ‘Curious Time’ or ‘Cut for Trumps’ or a new decoration for gutter plutocrats? It might mean ‘Calcutta Time,’ mightn’t it, as the egregious Phossy and his gang would have it? Well, we’ll go and look upon the Cornmealious Gosling-Green, M.P.’s, and chasten our soul from sinful pride ain’t it, Mrs. MacDougall?” and the Professor strolled across to the Sports Club for a cup of tea.

In the midst of cheery converse with a non-moral and unphilosophic Professor of Moral Philosophy, a fat youth of the name of Augustus Grobble whose life was one long picturesque pose, he sprang to his feet, remarking: “I go, Augustus, I am bidden to behold some prize Gosling-Greens or something, at 5 p.m., D.V. or D.T. or C.T. or L.S.D. or otherwise. Perhaps it was S.T. which means ‘Standard Time,’ and as I said, I go, Augustus.”

Augustus Grobble was understood to return thanks piously....

“Taxi, Sahib?” inquired the messenger-boy at the door.

“Go to,” said the Professor. “Also go call me a tikka-gharri and select a very senior horse, blind, angular, withered, wilted, and answering to the name, most obviously, of Skin-and-Grief lest I be taken by the Grizzly-Goslings for a down-trodden plutocrat and a brother and not seen for the fierce and ’aughty oppressor that I am.”

“Sahib?”

“Tikka-gharri lao, you lazy little ’ound! Don’t I speak plain English?” The Professor made it a practice to “rot” when not working hoping thus even in India to retain sanity and the broad and wholesome outlook, for he was a very short-tempered person, easily roused to dangerous wrath.

A carriage, upholding a pony who, in return, spasmodically moved the carriage which gave evidence of having been where moths break through and steal, lumbered into the Club garden, and the Professor, imploring the jehu not to let the pony “die on him” in the Hibernian sense of the expression, gingerly entered.

“Convey me to the gilded Potipharparian ’alls, Arthur,” said he.

“Sahib?”

“Why don’t you listen? Palangur Hill ki pas And don’t forget you’ve to get me there at 5 p.m. C.T. or S.T. I leave it to you, partner.”

On arrival, the Professor concluded that if he had arrived at 5 p.m. C.T. he ought to have come at 5 p.m. S.T., or vice versa; as what he termed ‘the show’ was evidently about over. Fortune favours all sorts of people.

His hostess, who looked as though she had come straight out of the Bible via Bond Street, and his host, who looked as though he had never come out of Petticoat Lane at all, both accused him of being unable to work out the problem of “Find Calcutta Time given the Standard Time,” and he professed to be proud to be able to acknowledge the truth of the compliment.

“Come and be presented to Meester and Meesers Carneelius Garsling-Green, M.P.,” said the lady, waddling before him; and her husband echoed:

“Oah, yess. Come and be presented to Meester and Meesers Garsling-Green,” waddling after him.

Mr. Cornelius Gosling-Green, M.P., proved to be a tall, drooping, melancholy creature, with “Dundreary” whiskers, reach-me-down suit of thick cloth, wrong kind of tie, thickish boots, and no presence. Without “form” and void.

Mrs. Cornelius Gosling-Green was a Severe Person, tiny, hard-featured and even more garrulous than her husband, who watched her anxiously and nervously as he answered any question put in her presence....

“And, oh, why, why are not you Mohammedans loyal?” said Mrs. Cornelius Gosling-Green, to a magnificent-looking specimen of the Mussulman of the old school stately, venerable, courteous and honourable who stood near, looking as though he wondered what the devil he was doing in that galley.

Turning from his friend, Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan, a fine Pathan, “Loyal, Madam! Loyal! Believe me we Mohammedans are most intensely and devotedly loyal,” he replied. “You have indeed been misled. Though you are only spending a month in India for collecting the materials for your book or pamphlet, you must really learn that much. We Mohammedans are as loyal as the English themselves. More loyal than some in fact,” he added, with intent. The Pathan smiled meaningly.

“Ah, that’s just it. I mean ’Why aren’t you Mohammedans loyal to poor India?’”

The man turned and left the marquee and the garden without another word.

“Poor bleeding India,” corrected the Professor.

“And are you a friend and worker for India?” continued the lady, turning to him and eyeing him with severity.

“I am. I do my humble possible in my obscure capacity, Mrs. Grisly-Gosling,” he replied. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Grossly-Grin that is er Gosling-Green, I should say.”

Be sure your sins will find you out. Through wilful perversion of the pleasing name the Professor had rendered himself incapable of enunciating it.

“And what do you do for India, write, speak, organize, subscribe or what?” asked the lady with increasing severity.

“I work.”

“In what capacity?”

“I am a professor at the Government Engineering College, here in Gungapur.”

“O-h-h-h-h! You’re one of the overpaid idlers who bolster up the Bureaucracy and batten on the....’”

“Allow me to assure you that I neither bolster, batten, nor bureau, Mrs. Grizzling I mean Gosling Green. Nor do I talk through my hat. I ” the Professor was beginning to get angry and to lose control.

“Perhaps you are one of us in disguise a Pro-Native?”

“I am intensely Pro-Native.”

The tall Pathan stared at the Professor.

“Oh, good! I beg your pardon! Cornelius, this gentleman is a Government professor and is with us!” said this female of the M.P. species.

“That’s right,” gushed the Gosling. “We want a few in the enemy’s camp both to spy out their weakness and to embarrass them. Now about this University business. I am going to take it up. That history affair now! Scandalous! I cannot tell you what a wave of indignation swept over England when that syllabus was drawn up. Nothing truly Liberal about the whole course, much less Radical. I at once said: ’I will see this righted. I will go to India, and I will beard the....’”

“I think it was I who said it, Cornelius,” remarked his much better half, coldly.

“Yes, my dear Superiora, yes. Now with your help I think we can do something, Professor. Good. This is providential. We shall be able to embarrass them now! Will you write me ”

“You are going a little too fast, I think,” said the Professor. “I am a ‘Pro-Native’ and a servant of the Pro-Native Government of India. As such, I don’t think I can be of any service to twenty-one-day visitors who wish to ‘embarrass’ the best friends of my friends the Natives, even supposing I were the sort of gentle Judas you compliment me by imagining me. I ”

“You distinctly say you are Pro-Native and then ”

“I repeat I am intensely Pro-Native, and so are the Viceroy, the Governors, the entire Civil Service, the Educational Service, the Forest Service, the P.W.D., the Medical Service, the Army, and every other Service and Department in India as well as every decent man in India. We are all Pro-Native, and all doing our best in our respective spheres, in spite of a deal of ignorant and officious interference and attempted ‘embarrassment’ at the hands of the self-seeking, the foolish, the busy-body, the idle not to mention the vicious. What a charming day it is. I have so enjoyed the honour of meeting you.”

“Well, my Scroobious Bird! And have they this day roasted in India such a Gosling as shall never be put out?” inquired the non-moral and unphilosophic Professor of Moral Philosophy, a little later.

“No, my Augustus,” was the reply. “It’s a quacking little gosling, and won’t lead to any great commotion m the farm-yard. Nasty little bird like a sat-bai or whatever they call those appalling things ‘seven-sister’ birds, aren’t they, that chatter and squeak all day.”

“Have a long drink and tell us all about it,” replied Mr. Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble.

“Oh, same old game on the same old stage. Same old players. Leading lady and gent changed only. Huge great hideous bungalow, like a Goanese wedding-cake, in a vast garden of symmetrically arranged blue and red glazed ‘art’ flower-pots. Lofty room decorated with ancestral portraits done by Mr. Guzzlebhoy Fustomji Paintwallah; green glass chandeliers and big blue and white tin balls; mauve carpet with purple azure roses; wall-paper, bright pink with red lilies and yellow cabbages; immense mouldy mirrors, and a tin alarm clock. Big crowd of all the fly-blown rich knaves of the place who have got more than they want out of Government or else haven’t got enough. Only novelty was a splendid Pathan chap, got-up in English except for the conical cap and puggri. Extraordinarily like Ross-Ellison, except that he had long black Pathan hair on his shoulders. Been to England; barrister probably, and seemed the most viciously seditious of the lot. Silly ignorant Goslings in the middle saying to Brahmíns, ’And you are Muscleman, aren’t you, or are you a Dhobi?’ and to Parsis, ’I suppose you High Caste gentlemen have to bathe every day?’ shoving their awful ignorance under the noses of everybody, and inquiring after the healths of the ‘chief wives’. Silly fatuous geese! and then talking the wildest piffle about the ’burning question of the hour’ and making the seditious rotters groan at their ineptitude and folly, until they cheer them up sudden-like with a bit of dam’ treason and sedition they ought to be jailed for. Jailed. I nearly threw a fit when the old geezer, in a blaze of diamonds and glory, brought up old Phossy and presented him to the Gander, and he murmured:

“‘My deah friend,’ as Phossy held on to his paw in transports, ’to think of their casting you into jail,’ and old Mother Potiphar squeaked: ’Oh, this is not the forger of that name but the eminent politeecian’. But poor Gosly had thought he had been a political prisoner! Meant no offence. And then some little squirt of an editor primed him with lies about the University and the new syllabus, and straightway the Gander tried to get me on the ‘embarrass the Government’ lay, and talked as though he knew all about it. ’I’ll get some of the ladies of my committee sent out here as History-lecturers at your University,’ says he. ’They’ll teach pure Liberal History and inculcate true ideas of liberty and self-government.’ I wanted to go outside and be ill. Good old ’Paget M.P.’ takes up a ‘Question’ and writes a silly pamphlet on it and thinks he’s said the last word. Written thousands. Don’t matter so long as he does it in England. Just the place for him nowadays. But when he feels he’s shoved out of the lime-light by a longer-haired Johnny, it’s rough luck that he should try and get back by spending his blooming committee’s money coming here and deludin’ the poor seditionist and seducin’ your Hatter from his allegiance to his salt.... Awful old fraud really no ability whatever. Came to my college to spout once, in my time. Lord! Still he was a guest, and we let him go. Run by his missus really, I think. Why can’t she stop at home and hammer windows? They say she went and asked the Begum of Bhopal to join her in a ‘mission and crusade’. Teach the Zenana Woman and Purdah Lady to Come Forth instead of Bring Forth. Come Forth and smash windows. Probably true. Silly Goslings. Drop ’em.... What did you think of our bowling yesterday? With anything like a wicket your College should be....”

Entering his lonely and sequestered bungalow that evening Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed changed his Pathan dress for European dining-kit, removed his beard and wig, and became Mr. Robin Ross-Ellison. After dinner he wrote to the eminent Cold weather Visitor to India, Mr. Cornelius Gosling-Green, as follows

“DEAR SIR,

“As I promised this afternoon, when you graciously condescended to honour me with your illuminating conversation, I enclose the papers which I guaranteed would shed some light on certain aspects of Indian conditions, and which I consider likely to give you food for thought.

“As I was myself educated in India, was brought up to maturity with Indian students, and have lived among them in many different places, I may claim to know something about them. As a class they are gentle, affectionate, industrious, well-meaning and highly intelligent. They are the most malleable of human metal, the finest material for the sculptor of humanity, the most impressionable of wax. In the right hands they can be moulded to anything, by the right leader led to any height. And conversely, of them a devil can make fiends. By the wrong leader they can be led down to any depth.

“The crying need of India is noble men to make noble men of these fine impressionable youths. Read the enclosed and take it that the writer (who wrote this recently in Gungapur Jail) is typical of a large class of misled, much-to-be-pitied youths, wrecked and ruined and destroyed their undoing begun by an unspeakably false and spurious educational ideal, and completed by the writings, and the spoken words of heartless unscrupulous scoundrels who use them to their own vile ends.

“Read, Sir, and realize how truly noble, useful and beautiful is your great work of endeavouring to embarrass our wicked Government, to weaken its prestige here and in England, to encourage its enemies, to increase discontent and unrest, to turn the thoughts of students to matters political, and, in short, to carry on the good work of the usual Self-advertising Visitation M.P.

“Humbly thanking your Honour, and wishing your Honour precisely the successes and rewards that your Honour deserves,

“I remain,

“The dust of your Honour’s feet,

“ILDERIM DOST MAHOMMED.”

And Mr. Cornelius Gosling-Green, M.P., read as follows:

... And so I am to be hanged by the neck till I am dead, am I? And for a murder which I never committed, and in the perpetration of which I had no hands? Is it, my masters? I trow so. But I can afford to spit for I did commit a murder, nevertheless, a beautiful secret murder that no one could possibly ever bring to my home or cast in my tooth.

“Well, well! Hang me and grin in sleeve and I will laugh on other side of face while dancing on nothing for if you think you are doing me in eye, I know I have done you in eye!

“Yes. I murdered Mr. Spensonly, the Chief Secretary of the Nuddee River Commission.

“As the Latin-and-Greeks used to say, ‘Solo fesit’!

“You think Mr. Spensonly died of plague? So he did. And who caused him to have plague? In short, who plagued him? (Ha! Ha! An infinite jest!) You shall know all about it and about, as Omar says, for I am going now to write my autobiography of myself, as all great so-called Criminals have done, for the admiration of mankind and the benefit of posterity. And my fellow-brothers and family-members shall proudly publish it with my photo that of a great Patriot Hero and second Mazzini, Robespierre, Kossuth, Garibaldi, Wallace, Charlotte Corday, Kosciusko, and Mr. Robert Bruce (of spider fame).

“And I shall welcome death and embrace the headsman ere making last speech and dying confession. Having long desired to know what lies Beyond, I shall make virtue of necessity and seize opportunity (of getting to know) to play hero and die gamish.

“Not like the Pathan murderer who walked about in front of condemned cell with Koran balanced on head, crying to his Prophet to save him, and defying Englishes to touch him. Of course they cooked his geese, Koran or not. One warder does more than many Prophets in Gungapur Jail. (He! He! Quite good epigram and nice cynicality of educated man.) The degraded and unpolished fellow decoyed two little girls into empty house to steal their jewellery, and cut off fingers and noses and ears to get rings and nose-jewels and ear-drops, and left to die. Holy Fakir, gentleman of course! Pooh! and Bah! for all holy men. I give spurnings to them all for fools, knaves, or hypocrites. There are no gods any more for educated gentleman, except himself, and that’s very good god to worship and make offering to (Ha! Ha! What a wit will be lost to the silly world when it permits itself to lose me.)

“Well, to return to the sheep, as the European proverb has it. I was born here in Gungapur, which will also have honour of being my death-and-cremation place, of poor but honest parent on thirty rupees a mensem. He was very clever fellow and sent five sons to Primary School, Middle School, High School and Gungapur Government College at cost of over hundred rupees a month, all out of his thirty rupees a mensem. He always used proverb ’Politeness lubricates wheels of life and palm also,’ and he obliged any man who made it worth his while. But he fell into bad odours at hands of Mr. Spensonly owing to folly of bribing-fellow sending cash to office and the letter getting into Mr. Spensonly’s post-bag and opening by mistake.

“But the Sahib took me up into his office to soften blow to progenitor and that shows he was a bad man or his luck would not have been to take me in and give chance to murder him.

“My good old paternal parent made me work many hours each night, and though he knew nothing of the subjects he could read English and would hear all my lessons and other brothers’, and we had to say Skagger Rack, Cattegat, Scaw Fell and Helvellyn, and such things to him, and he would abuse us if we mis-arranged the figures and letters in CaH2O2 and H2SO4 and all those things in bottles. Before the Matriculation Examination he made a Graduate, whom he had got under his thumb-nail, teach us all the answers to all the back questions in all subjects till we knew them all by heart, and also made us learn ten long essays by heart so as to make up the required essay out of parts of them. He nearly killed my brother by starvation (saving food as well as punishing miscreant) for failing the only one of us who ever failed in any examination which he did by writing out all first chapter of Washington Irving for essay, when the subject was ’Describe a sunrise in the Australian back-blocks’. As parent said, he could have used ’A moonlight stroll by the sea-shore’ and change the colour from silver to golden. But the fool was ill so ill that he tried to kill himself and had not the strength. He said he would rather go to the missionaries’ hell, full of Englishes, than go on learning Egbert, Ethelbald, Ethelbert, Ethelwulf, Ethelred, Alfred, Edward the Elder, Edred, Edwy, Edgar, Ethelred the Unready, and If two triangles have two sides of the one equal to two angles of the other each to each and the sides so subtended equal then shall the bases or fourth sides be equal each to each or be isosceles.

“Well, the progenitor kept our noses in the pie night and day and we all hated the old papa piously and wished he and we and all teachers and text-books were burned alive.

“But we were very much loved by everybody as we were so learned and clever, and whenever the Collector or anybody came to School, the Head Master used to put one of us in each room and call on us to answer questions and recite and say capes and bays without the map, and other clever things; and when my eldest brother left I had to change coat with another boy and do it twice sometimes, in different rooms.

“Sometimes the Educational Inspector himself would come, but then nothing could be done, for he would not ask questions that were always asked and were in the book, like the teachers and Deputy Inspectors did, but questions that no one knew and had to be thought out then and there. That is no test of Learning and any fool who has not troubled to mug his book by heart might be able to answer such questions, while the man who had learnt every letter sat dumb.

“I hated the school and the books I knew by heart, but I loved Mr. Ganeshram Joshibhai. He was a clever cunning man, and could always tweak the leg of pompous Head Master when he came to the room, and had beautiful ways of cheating him when he came to examine better than those of the other teachers.

“Before we had been with him a month he could tell us things while being examined, and no one else knew he was doing it. The initial letters of each word made up the words he wanted to crib to us, and when he scratched his head with the right hand the answer was ‘No,’ while with the left hand it was ‘Yes’. And the clever way he taught us sedition while teaching us History, and appearing to praise the English!

“He would spend hours in praising the good men who rebelled and fought and got Magnum Charter and disrespected the King and cheeked the Government and Members of Council. We knew all about Oliver Cromwell, Hampden, Pim, and those crappies, and many a boy who had never heard of Wolsey and Alfred the Great knew all about Felton the jolly fine patriot who stabbed the Member of Council, Buckingham Esquire, in back.

“We learnt whole History book at home and he spent all History lessons telling us about Plots, all the English History Plots and foreign too, and we knew about the man who killed Henry of Navarre, as well as about the killing of French and American Presidents of to-day. He showed always why successful plots succeeded and the others failed. And he gave weeks to the American Independence War and the French Revolution.

“And all the Indian History was about the Mutiny and how and why it failed, when he was not showing us how the Englishes have ruined and robbed India, and comparing the Golden Age of India (when no cow ever died and there was never famine, plague, police nor taxes) with the miserable condition of poor bleeding India to-day.

“He was a fine fellow and so clever that we were almost his worshippers. But I am not writing his autobiography but my own, so let him lapse herewith into posterity and well-merited oblivious.

“At the College when we could work no longer, we who had never learnt crickets and tennis and ping-pongs, would take a nice big lantern with big windows in four sides of it, and sit publicly in the middle of the grass at the Gardens (with our books for a blind) and make speech to each other about Mother India and exhort each other to join together in a secret society and strike a blow for the Mother, and talk about the heroes who had died on the scaffolding for her, or who were languishing in chokey and do poojah to their photos. But the superior members did no poojah to anything. Then came the Emissary in the guise of a holy man (and I thought it the most dangerous disguise he could have assumed, for I wonder the police do not arrest every sannyasi and fakir on suspicion) and brought us the Message. And he took us to hear the blind Mussulman they call Ilderim the Weeper.

“All was ready and nothing lacked but the Instrument.

“Would any of us achieve eternal fame and undying glory by being the next Instrument?

“We wouldn’t. No jolly fear, and thanks awfully.

“But we agreed to make a strike at the College and to drop a useless Browning pistol where it would be found, and in various other ways to be unrestful. And one of us, whom the Principal would not certify to sit for his F.E. and was very stony hard-up, joined the Emissary and went away with him to be a Servant and perhaps an Instrument later on (if he could not get a girl with a good dowry or a service of thirty rupees a mensem), he was so hungry and having nothing for belly.

“Yes, as Mr. Ganeshram Joshibhai used to say, that is what the British Government does for you educates you to be passed B.A. and educated gent., and then grudges to give you thirty rupees a mensem and expects you to go searching for employment and food to put in belly! Can B.A. work with hands like maistri?

“Then there came the best of all my friends, a science-knowing gentleman who gave all his great talents to bomb. And the cream of all the milky joke was that he had learnt all his science free, from Government, at school and college, and he not only used his knowledge to be first-class superior anarchist but he got chemicals from Government own laboratory.

“His brother was in Government Engineering College and between them they did much for one could make the bomb and the other could fill it.

“But they are both to be hanged at the same time that I am, and I do not grudge that I am to be innocently hanged for their plot and the blowing up of the bhangi by mistake for the Collector, for I have long aspired to be holy martyr in Freedom’s sacred cause and have photo in newspapers and be talked about.

“Besides, as I have said, I am not being done brown, as I murdered Mr. Spensonly, the Engineer.

“How I hated him!

“Why should he be big and strong while I am skinny and feeble owing to night-and-day burning midnight candle at both ends and unable to make them meet?

“Besides did he not bring unmerited dishonour on grey hairs of poor old progenitor by finding him out in bribe-taking? Did he not bring my honoured father’s aforesaying grey hairs in sorrow to reduced pension?

“Did he not upbraid and rebuke, nay, reproach me when I made grievous little errors and backslippers?

“A thousand times Yea.

“But I should never have murdered him had I not caught the Plague, so out of evil cometh good once more.

“The Plague came to Gungapur in its millions and we knew not what to do but stood like drowning man splitting at a straw.

“Superstitious Natives said it was the revenge of Goddess Kali for not sacrificing, and superstitious Europeans said it was a microbe created by their God to punish unhygienic way of living.

“Knowing there are no gods of any sort I am in a position to state that it was just written on our foreheads.

“To make confusion worse dumbfounded the Government of course had to seize horns of dilemma and trouble the poor. They had all cases taken to hospital and made segregation and inspection camps. They disinfected houses and burnt rags and even purdah women were not allowed to die in bosom of family. Of course police stole lakhs of rupees worth of clothes and furniture and said it was infected. And many good men who were enemies of Government were falsely accused of being plague-stricken and were dragged to hospital and were never seen again.

“Terrible calamities fell upon our city and at last it nearly lost me myself. I was seized, dragged from my family-bosom, cast into hospital and cured. And in hospital I learned from fellow who was subordinate-medical that rats get plague in sewers and cesspools and when they die of it their fleas must go elsewhere for food, and so hop on to other rat and give that poor chap plague too, by biting him with dirty mouths from dead rat, and then he dies and so in adfinitum, as the poet has it. But suppose no other rat is handy, what is poor hungry flea to do? When you can’t get curry, eat rice! When flea can’t get rat he eats man turns to nastier food. (He! He!)

“So when flea from plague-stricken rat jumps on to man and bites him, poor fellow gets plague bus.

“Didn’t friends and family-members skeddaddle and bunk when they saw rat after I told them all that! But I didn’t care, I had had plague once, and one cannot get it twice. Not one man in thousand recovers when he has got it, but I did. Old uneducated fool maternal parent did lots of thanks-givings and poojah because gods specially attentive to me but I said ‘Go to, old woman. It was written on forehead.’

“And when I returned to work, one day I had an idea an idea of how to punish Mr. Spensonly for propelling honoured parent head first out of job, and idea for striking blow at British prestige. We had our office in private bungalow in those days before new Secretariat was built, and it was unhealthy bungalow in which no one would live because they died.

“Mr. Spensonly didn’t care, and he had office on top floor, but bottom floor was clerks’ office who went away at night also. Now it was my painful duty to go every morning up to his office-room and see that peon had put fresh ink and everything ready and that the hamal had dusted properly. So it was not long before I was aware that all the drawers were locked except the top right-hand drawer, and that was not used as there was a biggish hole in the front of it where the edge was broken away from the above, some miscreant having once forced it open with tool.

“And verily it came to pass that one day, entering my humble abode-room, I saw a plague-rat lying suffering from in extremis and about to give up ghost. But having had plague I did not trouble about the fleas that would leave his body when it grew stiff and cold, in search of food. Instead I let it lie there while my food was being prepared, and regretted that it was not beneath the chair of some enemy of mine who had not had plague, instead of beneath my own ... that of Mr. Spensonly for example!...

“It was Saturday night. I returned to the office that evening, knowing that Mr. Spensonly was out; and I went to his office-room with idle excuse to the peon sitting in verandah and in my pocket was poor old rat kicking bucket fast.

“Who was to say I put deceasing rat in the Sahib’s table-drawer just where he would come and sit all day being in the habit of doing work on Sunday the Christian holy day (being a man of no religion or caste)? What do I know of rats and their properties when at death’s front door?

“Cannot rat go into a Sahib’s drawer as well as into poor man’s? If he did no work on Sunday very likely the fleas would remain until Monday, the rat dying slowly and remaining warm and not in rigour mortuis. Anyhow when they began to seek fresh fields and pastures new, being fed up with old rat or rather not able to get fed up enough, they would be jolly well on the look out, and glad enough to take nibble even at an Englishman! (He! He!) So I argued, and put good old rat in drawer and did slopes. On Monday, Mr. Spensonly went early from office, feeling feverish; and when I called, as in duty bound, to make humble inquiries on Tuesday, he was reported jolly sickish with Plague and he died Tuesday night. I never heard of any other Sahib dying of Plague in Gungapur except one missionary fellow who lived in the native city with native fellows.

“So they can hang me for share in bomb-outrage and welcome (though I never threw the bomb nor made it, and only took academic interest in affair as I told the Judge Sahib) for I maintain with my dying breath that it was I who murdered Mr. Spensonly and put tongue in cheeks when Gungapur Gazette wrote column about the unhealthy bungalow in which he was so foolish as to have his office. When I reflect that by this time to-morrow I shall be Holy Martyr I rejoice and hope photo will be good one, and I send this message to all the world

“‘Oh be....’”

Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Gosling-Green, M.P., liked this Pathan gentleman so well after reading his letter and enclosure. Before long they liked him very much less although they did not know it which sounds cryptic.

SECTION 5. MR. HORACE FAGGIT.

“Fair cautions, ain’t they, these bloomin’ niggers,” observed Mr. Horace Faggit, as the train rested and refreshed itself at a wayside station on its weary way to distant Gungapur.

Colonel Wilberforce Wriothesley, of the 99th Baluch Light Infantry, apparently did not feel called upon to notice the remark of Horace, whom he regarded as a Person.

“Makes you proud to think you are one of the Ruling Rice to look at the silly blighters, don’t it?” he persisted.

“No authority on rice,” murmured the Colonel, without looking up from his book.

Stuffy old beggar he seemed to the friendly and genial Horace, but Horace was too deeply interested in India and Horace to be affected by trifles.

For Mr. Horace Faggit had only set foot in his Imperial Majesty the King Emperor’s Indian Empire that month, and he was dazed with impressions, drunk with sensations, and uplifted with pride. Was he not one of the Conquerors, a member of the Superior Society, one of the Ruling Race, and, in short, a Somebody?

The train started again and Horace sank back upon the long couch of the unwonted first-class carriage, and sighed with contentment and satisfaction.

How different from Peckham and from the offices of the fine old British Firm of Schneider, Schnitzel, Schnorrer & Schmidt! A Somebody at last after being office-boy, clerk, strap-hanger, gallery-patron, cheap lodger, and paper-collar wearer. A Somebody, a Sahib, an English gent., one of the Ruling and Upper Class after being a fourpenny luncher, a penny-’bus-and-twopenny tuber, a waverer ’twixt Lockhart and Pearce-and-Plenty.

For him, now, the respectful salaam, precedence, the first-class carriage, the salutes of police and railway officials, hotels, a servant (elderly and called a “Boy"), cabs (more elderly and called “gharries"), first-class refreshment and waiting rooms, a funny but imposing sun-helmet, silk and cotton suits, evening clothes, deference, regard and prompt attention everywhere. Better than Peckham and the City, this! My! What tales he’d have to tell Gwladwys Gwendoline when he had completed his circuit and returned.

For Mr. Horace Faggit, plausible, observant, indefatigably cunning, and in business most capable ("No bloomin’ flies on ’Orris F.” as he would confidently and truthfully assure you) was the first tentative tentacle advanced to feel its way by the fine old British Firm of Schneider, Schnitzel, Schnorrer & Schmidt, in the mazy markets of the gorgeous Orient, and to introduce to the immemorial East their famous jewellery and wine of Birmingham and Whitechapel respectively; also to introduce certain exceeding-private documents to various gentlemen of Teutonic sympathies and activities in various parts of India documents of the nature of which Horace was entirely ignorant.

And the narrow bosom of Horace swelled with pride, as he realized that, here at least, he was a Gentleman and a Sahib.

Well, he’d let ’em know it too. Those who did him well and pleased him should get tips, and those who didn’t should learn what it was to earn the displeasure of the Sahib and to evoke his wrath. And he would endeavour to let all and sundry see the immeasurable distance and impassable gulf that lay between a Sahib and a nigger of any degree whatsoever.

This was the country to play the gentleman in and no error! You could fling your copper cash about in a land where a one-and-fourpenny piece was worth a hundred and ninety-two copper coins, where you could get a hundred good smokes to stick in your face for about a couple of bob, and where you could give a black cabby sixpence and done with it. Horace had been something of a Radical at home (and, indeed, when an office-boy, a convinced Socialist), especially when an old-age pension took his lazy, drunken old father off his hands, and handsomely rewarded the aged gentleman for an unswervingly regular and unbroken career of post-polishing and pub-pillaring. But now he felt he had been mistaken. Travel widens the horizon and class-hatred is only sensible and satisfactory when you are no class yourself. When you have got a position you must keep it up and being one of the Ruling Race was a position undoubtedly. Horace Faggit would keep it up too, and let ’em see all about it.

The train entered another station and drew in from the heat and glare to the heat and comparative darkness.

Yes, he would keep up his position as a Sahib haughtily and with jealousy, and he stared with terrible frown and supercilious hauteur at what he mentally termed a big, fat buck-nigger who dared and presumed to approach the carriage and look in. The man wore an enormous white turban, a khaki Norfolk jacket, white jodhpore riding-breeches that fitted the calf like skin, and red shoes with turned-up pointed toes. His beard was curled, and his hair hung in ringlets from his turban to his shoulders in a way Horace considered absurd. Could the blighter be actually looking to see whether there might be room for him, and meditating entry? If so Horace would show him his mistake. Pretty thing if niggers were to get into First-Class carriages with Sahibs like Horace!

“’Ere! What’s the gaime?” he inquired roughly. “Can’t yer see this is Firs-Class, and if you got a Firs-Class ticket, can’t yer see there’s two Sahibs ’ere? Sling yer ’ook, sour. Go on, jao!"

The man gave no evidence of having understood Horace.

“Sahib!” said he softly, addressing Colonel Wilberforce Wriothesley.

The Colonel went on reading.

“Jao, I tell yer,” repeated Horace, rather proud of his grasp of the vernacular. “Slope, barnshoot."

“Sahib!” said the man again.

The Colonel looked up and then sprang to his feet with outstretched hand.

“Bahut salaam, Subedar Major Saheb,” he cried, and wrung the hand of the “big fat buck-nigger” (who possessed the same medal-ribbons that he himself did) as he poured forth a torrent of mingled Pushtu, Urdu, and English while the Native Officer alternately saluted and pressed the Colonel’s hand to his forehead in transports of pure and wholly disinterested joy.

“They told me the Colonel Sahib would be passing through this week,” he said, “and I have met all the trains that I might look upon his face. I am weary of my furlough and would rejoin but for my law-suit. Praise be to Allah that I have met my Colonel Sahib,” and the man who had five war decorations was utterly unashamed of the tear that trickled.

“How does my son, Sahib?” he asked in Urdu.

“Well, Subedar Major Saheb, well. Worthily of his father whose place in the pultan may he come to occupy.”

“Praise be to God, Sahib! Let him no more seek his father’s house nor look upon his father’s face again, if he please thee not in all things. And is there good news of Malet-Marsac Sahib, O Colonel Sahib?” Then, with a glance at Horace, he asked: “Why does this low-born one dare to enter the carriage of the Colonel Sahib and sit? Truly the relwey terain is a great caste-breaker! Clearly he belongs to the class of the ghora-log, the common soldiers.” ...

“’Oo was that, a Rajah?” inquired the astounded Horace, as the train moved on.

“One of the people who keep India safe for you bagmen,” replied the Colonel, who was a trifle indignant on behalf of the insulted Subedar Major Mir Daoud Khan Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan of the 99th Baluch Light Infantry.

“No doubt he thought I was another officer,” reflected Horace. “They think you’re a gent, if you chivvy ’em.”

At Umbalpur Colonel Wilberforce Wriothesley left the train and Mr. Faggit had the carriage to himself for a time.

And it was only through his own firmness and proper pride that he had it to himself for so long, for at the very next station a beastly little brute of a black man actually tried to get in in with him, Mr. Horace Faggit of the fine old British Firm of Schneider, Schnitzel, Schnorrer & Schmidt, manufacturers of best quality Birmingham jewellery and “importers” of a fine Whitechapel wine.

But Horace settled him all right and taught him to respect Sahibs. It happened thus. Horace lay idly gazing at the ever-shifting scene of the platform in lordly detachment and splendid isolation, when, just as the train was starting, a little fat man, dressed in a little red turban like a cotton bowler, a white coat with a white sash over the shoulder, a white apron tucked up behind, pink silk socks, and patent leather shoes, told his servant to open the door. Ere the stupefied Horace could arise from his seat the man was climbing in! The door opened inwards however, and Horace was in time to give it a sharp thrust with his foot and send the little man, a mere Judge of the High Court, staggering backwards on to the platform where he sprawled at full length, while his turban, which Horace thought most ridiculous for a grown man, rolled in the dust. Slamming the door the “Sahib” leant out and jeered, while the insolent presumptuous “nigger” wiped the blood from his nose with a corner of the dhoti or apron-like garment (which Horace considered idiotic if not improper)....

But Homer nodded, and Horace went to sleep.

When he awoke he saw by the dim light of the screened roof-lamp that he was not alone, and that on the opposite couch a native had actually made up a bed with sheets, blankets and pillow, undressed himself, put on pyjamas and gone to bed! Gord streuth, he had! He’d attend to him in the morning though it would serve the brute right if Horace threw him out at the next station without his kit. But he looked rather large, and Mercy is notoriously a kingly attribute.

In the morning Mir Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed of Mekran Kot, Gungapur, and the world in general, awoke, yawned, stretched himself and arose.

He arose to some six feet and three inches of stature, and his thin pyjamasuit was seen to cover a remarkably fine and robustious figure provided with large contours where contours are desirable, and level tracts where such are good. As he lay flat back again, Horace noted that his chest rose higher than his head and the more southerly portion of his anatomy, while the action of clasping his hands behind his neck brought into prominence a pair of biceps that strained their sleeves almost to bursting. He was nearly as fair as London-bred Horace, but there were his turbanned conical hat, his curly toed shoes, his long silk coat, his embroidered velvet waistcoat and other wholly Oriental articles of attire. Besides, his vest was of patterned muslin and he had something on a coloured string round his neck.

“What are you doing ’ere?” demanded Horace truculently, as this bold abandoned “native” caught his eye and said “Good-morning”.

“At present I am doing nothing,” was the reply, “unless passive reclining may count as being something. I trust I do not intrude or annoy?”

“You do intrude and likewise you do annoy also. I ain’t accustomed to travel with blacks, and I ain’t agoing to have you spitting about ’ere. You got in when I was asleep.”

“You were certainly snoring when I got in, and I was careful not to awaken you but not on account of any great sensation of guilt or fear. I assure you I have no intention of spitting or being in any way rude, unmannerly, or offensive. And since you object to travelling with ‘blacks’ I suggest that you leave the carriage.”

Did Horace’s ears deceive him? Did he sleep, did he dream, and were visions about? Leave the carriage?

“Look ’ere,” he shouted, “you keep a civil tongue in your ’ead. Don’t you know I am a gentleman? What do you mean by getting into a first-class carriage with a gentleman and insulting ’im? Want me to throw you out before we reach a station? Do yer?”

“No, to tell you the truth I did not realize that you are a gentleman and I have known a great number of English gentlemen in England and India, and generally found them mirrors of chivalry and the pink of politeness and courtesy. And I hope you won’t try to throw me out either in a station or elsewhere for I might get annoyed and hurt you.”

What a funny nigger it was! What did he mean by “mirrors of chivalry”. Talked like a bloomin’ book. Still, Horace would learn him not to presoom.

The presumptuous one retired to the lavatory; washed, shaved, and reappeared dressed in full Pathan kit. But for this, there was nothing save his very fine physique and stature to distinguish him from an inhabitant of Southern Europe.

Producing a red-covered official work on Mounted Infantry Training, he settled down to read.

Horace regretted that India provided not his favourite Comic Cuts and Photo Bits.

“May I offer you a cigarette and light one myself?” said the “black” man in his quiet cultured voice.

“I don’t want yer fags and I don’t want you smoking while I got a empty stummick,” replied the Englishman.

Anon the train strolled into an accidental-looking station with an air of one who says, “Let’s sit down for a bit what?” and Horace sprang to the window and bawled for the guard.

“’Ere ask this native for ’is ticket,” he said, on the arrival of that functionary. “Wot’s ’e doing in ’ere with me?”

“Ticket, please?” said the guard a very black Goanese.

The Pathan produced his ticket.

“Will you kindly see if there is another empty first-class carriage, Guard?” said he.

“There iss one next a’door,” replied the guard.

“Then you can escape from your unpleasant predicament by going in there, Sir,” said the Pathan.

“I shall remine where I ham,” was the dignified answer.

“And so shall I,” said the Pathan.

“Out yer go,” said the bagman, rising threateningly.

“I am afraid I shall have to put you to the trouble of ejecting me,” said the Pathan, with a smile.

“I wouldn’t bemean myself,” countered Horace loftily, and didn’t.

“One often hears of the dangerous classes in India,” said the Pathan, as the train moved on again. “You belong to the most dangerous of all. You and your kind are a danger to the Empire and I have a good mind to be a public benefactor and destroy you. Put you to the edge of the sword or rather of the tin-opener,” and he pulled his lunch-basket from under the seat.

“Have some chicken, little Worm?” he continued, opening the basket and preparing to eat.

“Keep your muck,” replied Horace.

“No, no, little Cad,” corrected the strange and rather terrible person; “you are going to breakfast with me and you are going to learn a few things about India and yourself.”

And Horace did....

“Where are you going?” asked the Pathan person later.

“I’m going to work up a bit o’ trade in a place called Gungerpore,” was the reply of the cowed Horace.

But in Gungapur Horace adopted the very last trade that he, respectable man, ever expected to adopt that of War.