The Queen's Scarlet Part 48

"Oh! for the days when I was young!" people cry, and they may well make use of that interjection; but it ought to be in something else than regret.

I, for one, would prefer not to be young again, to go through all that suffering connected with my head.

Pray, do not imagine that I refer to learning the three "R's" or to working out those angular puzzles invented by Euclid, whose problems would only stop in my brain one at a time--that is to say, when I had mastered one perfectly, and could repeat and ill.u.s.trate it throughout upon slate with pencil, upon paper with pen, upon blackboard with chalk, the process of acquiring another made a clean sweep of the first, which was utterly demolished and had to be relearned, only in its turn to destroy "Proposition Two."

I meant nothing of that sort, but rather the external suffering that my unfortunate little head received at the hands of nurses, who half-suffocated me with the soap that produced temporary blindness in my eyes, and deafness in my ears, before the best family yellow or mottled was "slooshed" away, leaving me panting and hot. Then came the tremendous rubbing, followed by the jigging out of knots of hair with a cruel comb and the brushing which seemed to make numberless little holes in my tender scalp; while my head was knocked to this side and to that, and then tapped with the back of the brush, because I was a naughty boy and would not hold still.

Lieutenant Lacey's treatment at the hands of Jerry Brigley was of a very different type. When he was shampooing, Jerry could have given Cinquevalli, the great juggler, long odds and beaten him. This man performs wonderful feats with cannon-b.a.l.l.s, but they are nothing to Jerry's graceful acts with the human head, which he would take in hand and keep in a perfect state of equilibrium, balancing the pressure of one set of fingers by the resistance of the other; the same when towelling, and, above all, when finishing with a pair of the lieutenant's ivory-backed brushes. His master's head was kept floating, as it were, on the points of the bristles, while a pleasant stimulation was kept up on what Jerry termed "the scallup."

"By the way, Brigley," said the lieutenant, who sat back in his chair, with his eyes half-shut, "I shall have three or four friends here to-night."

"Yes, sir."

"See that the refreshments are on a side-table."

"Yes, sir."

"And go down into the town and buy three or four packs of cards."

"Yes, sir."

Silence for a few moments, and then the lieutenant began again, just as Jerry had come to the conclusion that he could name the guests expected, one of whom was certain to be Mark Frayne.

"And he won't be very glad to see me here," thought Jerry, who started at his master's next words.

"What have you done with your tongue?"

"Beg pardon, sir? Nothing, sir."

"Because you don't talk. Aren't you well?"

"Well, sir? No, sir; not quite, sir."

"Take some pills!" growled Lacey.

"Pills, sir? I 'ate pills!"

"More stupid you. Swallow them at once!"

"Beg pardon, sir?"

"I say, swallow them at once. Best way is to wrap them in cigarette-paper."

"Beg pardon, sir! A mistake, sir. I said I 'ate pills."

"I heard you."

Jerry peered round a little into the lieutenant's face, to see if he were trying to make a joke; but Lacey looked serious enough, and the man went on, confidentially--

"Fact is, sir, I'm a bit upset."

"Look sharp and get right again. Don't you say you're too poorly to wait on us to-night!"

"Oh, dear, no, sir! I shall attend upon you; but, the fact is, I'm in trouble."

"Humph! And you want an advance upon your wages. How much?"

"No, sir," said Jerry, irritably, as he drove the bristles of one brush among the bristles of the other; "it's not that sort of trouble. It's about someone."

"Lady! Why, Brigley, you're not thinking of getting married?"

"Oh, no, sir! it's about--about a gent--I mean a man, sir. It's him as you know, sir--Smithson."

"d.i.c.k Smithson!" cried the lieutenant. "What's the matter with him?"

"He ain't been the same, sir, since the night of the ball. He has worried me a deal."

"Yes, he seems a good deal pulled down, poor fellow! But is he ill again?"

"No, sir; he went out yesterday--had a pa.s.s--and--"

"And what? Don't hesitate like that, man!"

"He did not come back last night."

"Sorry to hear it," said the lieutenant. "Means trouble--punishment. I liked Smithson."

"Yes, sir; everyone did."

"Perhaps he's taken ill, and had to stay somewhere."

Jerry was silent.

"You don't think he has bolted?"

Jerry made no answer, and the lieutenant swung round in his chair.

"Why, you do," he cried, excitedly. "Do you know that bolting means desertion, sir?"

"Yes, sir," said Jerry, humbly.

"Then you're a fool, Brigley."

"Yes, sir."

"If Smithson had been a common sort of pothouse-haunting fellow, it might have been so; but Smithson was a clever musician, and too much of a gentleman to do such a thing."

"Thank ye, sir."