No More Learning

'Owned a
permanently juvenile Mamma, and danced damnably. I say, Jervoise, you
knew the Threegans, didn't you?

JERVOISE. (Civilian of twenty-five years' service, waking up from his
doze. ) Eh? What's that? Knew who? How? I thought I was at Home, confound
you!

Mackesy. The Threegan girl's engaged, so Blayne says.

Jervoise. (Slowly. ) Engaged--en-gaged! Bless my soul! I'm getting an old
man! Little Minnie Threegan engaged. It was only the other day I went
home with them in the Surat--no, the Massilia--and she was crawling
about on her hands and knees among the ayahs. 'Used to call me the
"Tick Tack Sahib" because I showed her my watch. And that was in
Sixty-Seven--no, Seventy. Good God, how time flies! I'm an old man.
I remember when Threegan married Miss Derwent--daughter of old Hooky
Derwent--but that was before your time. And so the little baby's engaged
to have a little baby of her own! Who's the other fool?

Mackesy. Gadsby of the Pink Hussars.

Jervoise. 'Never met him. Threegan lived in debt, married in debt,
and'll die in debt. 'Must be glad to get the girl off his hands.

Blayne. Caddy has money--lucky devil. Place at Home, too.

Doone. He comes of first-class stock. 'Can't quite understand his being
caught by a Colonel's daughter, and (looking cautiously round room. )
Black Infantry at that! No offence to you, Blayne.

Blayne. (Stiffly. ) Not much, thaanks.

Curtiss. (Quoting motto of Irregular Moguls. ) "We are what we are," eh,
old man? But Gadsby was such a superior animal as a rule. Why didn't he
go Home and pick his wife there?

Mackesy. They are all alike when they come to the turn into the
straight. About thirty a man begins to get sick of living alone.

Curtiss. And of the eternal mutton--chop in the morning.

Doone. It's a dead goat as a rule, but go on, Mackesy.

Mackesy. If a man's once taken that way nothing will hold him, Do you
remember Benoit of your service, Doone? They transferred him to Tharanda
when his time came, and he married a platelayer's daughter, or something
of that kind. She was the only female about the place.

Doone. Yes, poor brute. That smashed Benoit's chances of promotion
altogether. Mrs. Benoit used to ask "Was you goin' to the dance this
evenin'? "

Curtiss. Hang it all! Gadsby hasn't married beneath him. There's no
tar-brush in the family, I suppose.

Jervoise. Tar-brush! Not an anna. You young fellows talk as though
the man was doing the girl an honor in marrying her. You're all too
conceited--nothing's good enough for you.

Blayne. Not even an empty Club, a dam' bad dinner at the Judge's, and
a Station as sickly as a hospital. You're quite right. We're a set of
Sybarites.

Doone. Luxurious dogs, wallowing in--

Curtiss. Prickly heat between the shoulders. I'm covered with it. Let's
hope Beora will be cooler.

Blayne. Whew! Are you ordered into camp, too? I thought the Gunners had
a clean sheet.

Curtiss. No, worse luck. Two cases yesterday--one died--and if we have a
third, out we go. Is there any shooting at Beora, Doone?

Doone. The country's under water, except the patch by the Grand Trunk
Road. I was there yesterday, looking at a bund, and came across four
poor devils in their last stage. It's rather bad from here to Kuchara.

Curtiss. Then we're pretty certain to have a heavy go of it. Heigho!
I shouldn't mind changing places with Gaddy for a while. 'Sport with
Amaryllis in the shade of the Town Hall, and all that. Oh, why doesn't
somebody come and marry me, instead of letting me go into cholera-camp?

Mackesy. Ask the Committee.

Curtiss. You ruffian! You'll stand me another peg for that. Blayne,
what will you take? Mackesy is fine on moral grounds. Done, have you any
preference?

Doone. Small glass Kummel, please. Excellent carminative, these days.
Anthony told me so.

Mackesy. (Signing voucher for four drinks. ) Most unfair punishment.
I only thought of Curtiss as Actaeon being chivied round the billiard
tables by the nymphs of Diana.

Blayne. Curtiss would have to import his nymphs by train. Mrs. Cockley's
the only woman in the Station. She won't leave Cockley, and he's doing
his best to get her to go.

Curtiss. Good, indeed! Here's Mrs. Cockley's health. To the only wife in
the Station and a damned brave woman!

OMNES. (Drinking. ) A damned brave woman

Blayne. I suppose Gadsby will bring his wife here at the end of the cold
weather. They are going to be married almost immediately, I believe.

Curtiss. Gadsby may thank his luck that the Pink Hussars are all
detachment and no headquarters this hot weather, or he'd be torn
from the arms of his love as sure as death. Have you ever noticed the
thorough-minded way British Cavalry take to cholera? It's because they
are so expensive. If the Pinks had stood fast here, they would have been
out in camp a month ago. Yes, I should decidedly like to be Gadsby.

Mackesy. He'll go Home after he's married, and send in his papers--see
if he doesn't.

Blayne. Why shouldn't he? Hasn't he money? Would any one of us be here
if we weren't paupers?

Doone. Poor old pauper! What has become of the six hundred you rooked
from our table last month?

Blayne. It took unto itself wings. I think an enterprising tradesman got
some of it, and a shroff gobbled the rest--or else I spent it.

Curtiss. Gadsby never had dealings with a shroff in his life.

Doone. Virtuous Gadsby! If I had three thousand a month, paid from
England, I don't think I'd deal with a shroff either.

Mackesy. (Yawning. ) Oh, it's a sweet life! I wonder whether matrimony
would make it sweeter.

Curtiss. Ask Cockley--with his wife dying by inches!

Blayne. Go home and get a fool of a girl to come out to--what is it
Thackeray says? --"the splendid palace of an Indian pro-consul. "

Doone. Which reminds me. My quarters leak like a sieve. I had fever last
night from sleeping in a swamp. And the worst of it is, one can't do
anything to a roof till the Rains are over.

Curtiss. What's wrong with you? You haven't eighty rotting Tommies to
take into a running stream.

Doone. No: but I'm mixed boils and bad language. I'm a regular Job all
over my body. It's sheer poverty of blood, and I don't see any chance of
getting richer--either way.

Blayne. Can't you take leave?

Doone. That's the pull you Army men have over us. Ten days are nothing
in your sight. I'm so important that Government can't find a substitute
if I go away. Ye-es, I'd like to be Gadsby, whoever his wife may be.

Curtiss. You've passed the turn of life that Mackesy was speaking of.

Doone. Indeed I have, but I never yet had the brutality to ask a woman
to share my life out here.

Blayne. On my soul I believe you're right. I'm thinking of Mrs. Cockley.
The woman's an absolute wreck.

Doone. Exactly. Because she stays down here. The only way to keep her
fit would be to send her to the Hills for eight months--and the same
with any woman. I fancy I see myself taking a wife on those terms.

Mackesy. With the rupee at one and sixpence. The little Doones would be
little Debra Doones, with a fine Mussoorie @chi-chi anent to bring home
for the holidays.

Curtiss. And a pair of be-ewtiful sambhur--horns for Doone to wear, free
of expense, presented by--Doone.
Yes, it's an enchanting prospect. By
the way, the rupee hasn't done falling yet. The time will come when we
shall think ourselves lucky if we only lose half our pay.

Curtiss. Surely a third's loss enough. Who gains by the arrangement?
That's what I want to know.

Blayne. The Silver Question! I'm going to bed if you begin squabbling
Thank Goodness, here's Anthony--looking like a ghost.

Enter ANTHONY, Indian Medical Staff, very white and tired.

Anthony. 'Evening, Blayne. It's raining in sheets. Whiskey peg lao,
khitmatgar. The roads are something ghastly.

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 chaprassi 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 gratitude over his
evening drink.

Blayne. That's just what he would do, damn 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 title. 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.

Curtiss. That's odd. Now I should have thought that Mrs. Deegie's
influence would have led them to take other men's wives. It ought to
have made them afraid of the judgment of Providence.

Anthony. Mrs. Herriott will make Gadsby afraid of something more than
the judgment of Providence, I fancy.

Blayne. Supposing things are as you say, he'll be a fool to face her.
He'll sit tight at Simla.

Anthony. Shouldn't be a bit surprised if he went off to Naini to
explain. He's an unaccountable sort of man, and she's likely to be a
more than unaccountable woman.

Doone. What makes you take her character away so confidently?

Anthony. Primum tempus. Caddy was her first and a woman doesn't allow
her first man to drop away without expostulation. She justifies the
first transfer of affection to herself by swearing that it is forever
and ever. Consequently--

Blayne.