The Works of Rudyard Kipling Part 146

Curtiss. How's Mingle?

Anthony. Very bad, and more frightened. I handed him over to Fewton.

Mingle might just as well have called him in the first place, instead of bothering me.

Blayne. He's a nervous little chap. What has he got, this time?

Anthony. 'Can't quite say. A very bad tummy and a blue funk so far. He asked me at once if it was cholera, and I told him not to be a fool.

That soothed him.

Curtiss. Poor devil! The funk does half the business in a man of that build.

Anthony. (Lighting a cheroot.) I firmly believe the funk will kill him if he stays down. You know the amount of trouble he's been giving Fewton for the last three weeks. He's doing his very best to frighten himself into the grave.

GENERAL CHORUS. Poor little devil! Why doesn't he get away?

Anthony. 'Can't. He has his leave all right, but he's so dipped he can't take it, and I don't think his name on paper would raise four annas.

That's in confidence, though.

Mackesy. All the Station knows it.

Anthony. "I suppose I shall have to die here," he said, squirming all across the bed. He's quite made up his mind to Kingdom Come. And I know he has nothing more than a wet-weather tummy if he could only keep a hand on himself.

Blayne. That's bad. That's very bad. Poor little Miggy. Good little chap, too. I say--

Anthony. What do you say?

Blayne. Well, look here--anyhow. If it's like that--as you say--I say fifty.

Curtiss. I say fifty.

Mackesy. I go twenty better.

Doone. Bloated Croesus of the Bar! I say fifty. Jervoise, what do you say? Hi! Wake up!

Jervoise. Eh? What's that? What's that?

Curtiss. We want a hundred rupees from you. You're a bachelor drawing a gigantic income, and there's a man in a hole.

Jervoise. What man? Any one dead?

Blayne. No, but he'll die if you don't--give the hundred. Here! Here's a peg-voucher. You can see what we've signed for, and Anthony's man will come round tomorrow to collect it. So there will be no trouble.

Jervoise. (Signing.) One hundred, E. M. J. There you are (feebly). It isn't one of your jokes, is it?

Blayne. No, it really is wanted. Anthony, you were the biggest poker-winner last week, and you've defrauded the tax-collector too long.

Sign!

Anthony. Let's see. Three fifties and a seventy-two twenty-three twenty--say four hundred and twenty. That'll give him a month clear at the Hills. Many thanks, you men. I'll send round the chapra.s.si tomorrow.

Curtiss. You must engineer his taking the stuff, and of course you mustn't--

Anthony. Of course. It would never do. He'd weep with grat.i.tude over his evening drink.

Blayne. That's just what he would do, d.a.m.n him. Oh! I say, Anthony, you pretend to know everything. Have you heard about Gadsby?

Anthony. No. Divorce Court at last?

Blayne. Worse. He's engaged!

Anthony. How much? He can't be!

Blayne. He is. He's going to be married in a few weeks. Markyn told me at the Judge's this evening. It's pukka.

Anthony. You don't say so? Holy Moses! There'll be a shine in the tents of Kedar.

Curtiss. 'Regiment cut up rough, think you?

Anthony. 'Don't know anything about the Regiment.

Mackesy. It is bigamy, then?

Anthony. Maybe. Do you mean to say that you men have forgotten, or is there more charity in the world than I thought?

Doone. You don't look pretty when you are trying to keep a secret. You bloat. Explain.

Anthony. Mrs. Herriott!

Blayne. (After a long pause, to the room generally.) It's my notion that we are a set of fools.

Mackesy. Nonsense. That business was knocked on the head last season.

Why, young Mallard--

Anthony. Mallard was a candlestick, paraded as such. Think awhile.

Recollect last season and the talk then. Mallard or no Mallard, did Gadsby ever talk to any other woman?

Curtiss. There's something in that. It was slightly noticeable now you come to mention it. But she's at Naini Tal and he's at Simla.

Anthony. He had to go to Simla to look after a globe-trotter relative of his--a person with a t.i.tle. Uncle or aunt.

Blayne And there he got engaged. No law prevents a man growing tired of a woman.

Anthony. Except that he mustn't do it till the woman is tired of him.

And the Herriott woman was not that.

Curtiss. She may be now. Two months of Naini Tal works wonders.

Doone. Curious thing how some women carry a Fate with them. There was a Mrs. Deegie in the Central Provinces whose men invariably fell away and got married. It became a regular proverb with us when I was down there.

I remember three men desperately devoted to her, and they all, one after another, took wives.