No More Learning

"Wot's up? " asked twenty tents; and through twenty tents ran the
answer--"Wick, 'e's down. "

They brought the news to Revere and he groaned. "Any one but Bobby and I
shouldn't have cared! The Sergeant-Major was right. "

"Not going out this journey," gasped Bobby, as he was lifted from
the doolie. "Not going out this journey. " Then with an air of supreme
conviction--"I can't, you see. "

"Not if I can do anything! " said the Surgeon-Major, who had hastened
over from the mess where he had been dining.

He and the Regimental Surgeon fought together with Death for the life
of Bobby Wick. Their work was interrupted by a hairy apparition in a
blue-grey dressing-gown who stared in horror at the bed and cried--"Oh,
my Gawd. It can't be 'im! " until an indignant Hospital Orderly whisked
him away.

If care of man and desire to live could have done aught, Bobby would
have been saved. As it was, he made a fight of three days, and the
Surgeon-Major's brow uncreased. "We'll save him yet," he said; and the
Surgeon, who, though he ranked with the Captain, had a very youthful
heart, went out upon the word and pranced joyously in the mud.

"Not going out this journey," whispered Bobby Wick, gallantly, at the
end of the third day.

"Bravo! " said the Surgeon-Major. "That's the way to look at it, Bobby. "

As evening fell a grey shade gathered round Bobby's mouth, and he turned
his face to the tent wall wearily. The Surgeon-Major frowned.

"I'm awfully tired," said Bobby, very faintly. "What's the use of
bothering me with medicine? I-don't-want-it. Let me alone. "

The desire for life had departed, and Bobby was content to drift away on
the easy tide of Death.

"It's no good," said the Surgeon-Major. "He doesn't want to live. He's
meeting it, poor child. " And he blew his nose.

Half a mile away, the regimental band was playing the overture to the
Sing-song, for the men had been told that Bobby was out of danger. The
clash of the brass and the wail of the horns reached Bobby's ears.

Is there a single joy or pain,
That I should never kno-ow?
You do not love me, 'tis in vain,
Bid me goodbye and go!

An expression of hopeless irritation crossed the boy's face, and he
tried to shake his head.

The Surgeon-Major bent down--"What is it? Bobby? "--

"Not that waltz," muttered Bobby. "That's our own--our very ownest own.
Mummy dear. "

With this he sank into the stupor that gave place to death early next
morning.

Revere, his eyes red at the rims and his nose very white, went into
Bobby's tent to write a letter to Papa Wick which should bow the white
head of the ex-Commissioner of Chota-Buldana in the keenest sorrow of
his life. Bobby's little store of papers lay in confusion on the table,
and among them a half-finished letter. The last sentence ran: "So you
see, darling, there is really no fear, because as long as I know you
care for me and I care for you, nothing can touch me. "

Revere stayed in the tent for an hour. When he came out, his eyes were
redder than ever.

* * * * *

Private Conklin sat on a turned-down bucket, and listened to a not unfamiliar
tune. Private Conklin was a convalescent and should have been tenderly
treated.

"Ho! " said Private Conklin. "There's another bloomin' orf'cer dead. "

The bucket shot from under him, and his eyes filled with a smithyful of
sparks. A tall man in a blue-grey bedgown was regarding him with deep
disfavor.

"You ought to take shame for yourself, Conky! Orf'cer? --bloomin'
orf'cer? I'll learn you to misname the likes of 'im. Hangel! Bloomin'
Hangel! That's wot 'e is! "

And the Hospital Orderly was so satisfied with the justice of the
punishment that he did not even order Private Dormer back to his cot.

* * * * *




IN THE MATTER OF A PRIVATE

Hurrah! hurrah! a soldier's life for me!
Shout, boys, shout! for it makes you jolly and free.
--The Ramrod Corps.

People who have seen, say that one of the quaintest spectacles of
human frailty is an outbreak of hysterics in a girls' school. It starts
without warning, generally on a hot afternoon among the elder pupils. A
girl giggles till the giggle gets beyond control. Then she throws up her
head, and cries, "Honk, honk, honk," like a wild goose, and tears mix
with the laughter. If the mistress be wise she will rap out something
severe at this point to check matters. If she be tender-hearted, and
send for a drink of water, the chances are largely in favor of another
girl laughing at the afflicted one and herself collapsing. Thus the
trouble spreads, and may end in half of what answers to the Lower Sixth
of a boys' school rocking and whooping together. Given a week of warm
weather, two stately promenades per diem, a heavy mutton and rice meal
in the middle of the day, a certain amount of nagging from the teachers,
and a few other things, some amazing effects develop. At least this is
what folk say who have had experience.

Now, the Mother Superior of a Convent and the Colonel of a British
Infantry Regiment would be justly shocked at any comparison being made
between their respective charges. But it is a fact that, under certain
circumstances, Thomas in bulk can be worked up into dithering, rippling
hysteria. He does not weep, but he shows his trouble unmistakably, and
the consequences get into the newspapers, and all the good people
who hardly know a Martini from a Snider say: "Take away the brute's
ammunition! "

Thomas isn't a brute, and his business, which is to look after the
virtuous people, demands that he shall have his ammunition to his hand.
He doesn't wear silk stockings, and he really ought to be supplied with
a new Adjective to help him to express his opinions; but, for all that,
he is a great man. If you call him "the heroic defender of the national
honor" one day, and "a brutal and licentious soldiery" the next, you
naturally bewilder him, and he looks upon you with suspicion. There is
nobody to speak for Thomas except people who have theories to work off
on him; and nobody understands Thomas except Thomas, and he does not
always know what is the matter with himself.

That is the prologue. This is the story:

Corporal Slane was engaged to be married to Miss Jhansi M'Kenna,
whose history is well known in the regiment and elsewhere. He had his
Colonel's permission, and, being popular with the men, every arrangement
had been made to give the wedding what Private Ortheris called "eeklar. "
It fell in the heart of the hot weather, and, after the wedding,
Slane was going up to the Hills with the Bride. None the less, Slane's
grievance was that the affair would Be only a hired-carriage wedding,
and he felt that the "eeklar" of that was meagre. Miss M'Kenna did
not care so much. The Sergeant's wife was helping her to make her
wedding-dress, and she was very busy. Slane was, just then, the only
moderately contented man in barracks. All the rest were more or less
miserable.

And they had so much to make them happy, too. All their work was over
at eight in the morning, and for the rest of the day they could lie on
their backs and smoke Canteen-plug and swear at the punkah-coolies. They
enjoyed a fine, full flesh meal in the middle of the day, and then threw
themselves down on their cots and sweated and slept till it was cool
enough to go out with their "towny," whose vocabulary contained less
than six hundred words, and the Adjective, and whose views on every
conceivable question they had heard many times before.

There was the Canteen, of course, and there was the Temperance Room with
the second-hand papers in it; but a man of any profession cannot read
for eight hours a day in a temperature of 96 degrees or 98 degrees in
the shade, running up sometimes to 103 degrees at midnight. Very few
men, even though they get a pannikin of flat, stale, muddy beer and hide
it under their cots, can continue drinking for six hours a day. One man
tried, but he died, and nearly the whole regiment went to his funeral
because it gave them something to do. It was too early for the
excitement of fever or cholera. The men could only wait and wait and
wait, and watch the shadow of the barrack creeping across the blinding
white dust. That was a gay life.

They lounged about cantonments--it was too hot for any sort of game,
and almost too hot for vice--and fuddled themselves in the evening,
and filled themselves to distension with the healthy nitrogenous food
provided for them, and the more they stoked the less exercise they took
and more explosive they grew. Then tempers began to wear away, and men
fell a-brooding over insults real or imaginary, for they had nothing
else to think of. The tone of the repartees changed, and instead of
saying light-heartedly: "I'll knock your silly face in," men grew
laboriously polite and hinted that the cantonments were not big enough
for themselves and their enemy, and that there would be more space for
one of the two in another place.

It may have been the Devil who arranged the thing, but the fact of the
case is that Losson had for a long time been worrying Simmons in an
aimless way. It gave him occupation. The two had their cots side by
side, and would sometimes spend a long afternoon swearing at each other;
but Simmons was afraid of Losson and dared not challenge him to a fight.
He thought over the words in the hot still nights, and half the hate he
felt toward Losson be vented on the wretched punkah-coolie.

Losson bought a parrot in the bazar, and put it into a little cage,
and lowered the cage into the cool darkness of a well, and sat on the
well-curb, shouting bad language down to the parrot. He taught it to
say: "Simmons, ye so-oor," which means swine, and several other things
entirely unfit for publication. He was a big gross man, and he shook
like a jelly when the parrot had the sentence correctly. Simmons,
however, shook with rage, for all the room were laughing at him--the
parrot was such a disreputable puff of green feathers and it looked so
human when it chattered. Losson used to sit, swinging his fat legs, on
the side of the cot, and ask the parrot what it thought of Simmons. The
parrot would answer: "Simmons, ye so-oor. " "Good boy," Losson used to
say, scratching the parrot's head; "ye 'ear that, Sim? "

And Simmons used to turn over on his stomach and make answer: "I 'ear.
Take 'eed you don't 'ear something one of these days. "

In the restless nights, after he had been asleep all day, fits of blind
rage came upon Simmons and held him till he trembled all over, while he
thought in how many different ways he would slay Losson. Sometimes he
would picture himself trampling the life out of the man, with heavy
ammunition-boots, and at others smashing in his face with the butt, and
at others jumping on his shoulders and dragging the head back till the
neckbone cracked. Then his mouth would feel hot and fevered, and he
would reach out for another sup of the beer in the pannikin.

But the fancy that came to him most frequently and stayed with him
longest was one connected with the great roll of fat under Losson's
right ear. He noticed it first on a moonlight night, and thereafter
it was always before his eyes. It was a fascinating roll of fat. A man
could get his hand upon it and tear away one side of the neck; or he
could place the muzzle of a rifle on it and blow away all the head in
a flash. Losson had no right to be sleek and contented and well-to-do,
when he, Simmons, was the butt of the room, Some day, perhaps, he would
show those who laughed at the "Simmons, ye so-oor" joke, that he was as
good as the rest, and held a man's life in the crook of his forefinger.
When Losson snored, Simmons hated him more bitterly than ever. Why
should Losson be able to sleep when Simmons had to stay awake hour after
hour, tossing and turning on the tapes, with the dull liver pain gnawing
into his right side and his head throbbing and aching after Canteen? He
thought over this for many nights, and the world became unprofitable to
him. He even blunted his naturally fine appetite with beer and tobacco;
and all the while the parrot talked at and made a mock of him.

The heat continued and the tempers wore away more quickly than before.
A Sergeant's wife died of heat-apoplexy in the night, and the rumor ran
abroad that it was cholera. Men rejoiced openly, hoping that it would
spread and send them into camp. But that was a false alarm.

It was late on a Tuesday evening, and the men were waiting in the deep
double verandas for "Last Posts," when Simmons went to the box at the
foot of his bed, took out his pipe, and slammed the lid down with a
bang that echoed through the deserted barrack like the crack of a rifle.
Ordinarily speaking, the men would have taken no notice; but their
nerves were fretted to fiddle-strings. They jumped up, and three or four
clattered into the barrack-room only to find Simmons kneeling by his
box.

"Owl It's you, is it? " they said and laughed foolishly. "We t h o u g
h t 'twas"--Simmons rose slowly. If the accident had so shaken his
fellows, what would not the reality do?

"You thought it was--did you? And what makes you think? " he said,
lashing himself into madness as he went on; "to Hell with your thinking,
ye dirty spies. "

"Simmons, ye so-oor," chuckled the parrot in the veranda, sleepily,
recognizing a well-known voice. Now that was absolutely all.

The tension snapped. Simmons fell back on the arm-rack
deliberately,--the men were at the far end of the room,--and took out
his rifle and packet of ammunition. "Don't go playing the goat, Sim! "
said Losson. "Put it down," but there was a quaver in his voice. Another
man stooped, slipped his boot and hurled it at Simmons's head. The
prompt answer was a shot which, fired at random, found its billet in
Losson's throat. Losson fell forward without a word, and the others
scattered.

"You thought it was! " yelled Simmons. "You're drivin' me to it! I tell
you you're drivin' me to it! Get up, Losson, an' don't lie shammin'
there--you an' your blasted parrit that druv me to it! "

But there was an unaffected reality about Losson's pose that showed
Simmons what he had done. The men were still clamoring on the veranda.
Simmons appropriated two more packets of ammunition and ran into the
moonlight, muttering: "I'll make a night of it. Thirty roun's, an' the
last for myself. Take you that, you dogs! "

He dropped on one knee and fired into the brown of the men on the
veranda, but the bullet flew high, and landed in the brickwork with a
vicious phat that made some of the younger ones turn pale. It is, as
musketry theorists observe, one thing to fire and another to be fired
at.

Then the instinct of the chase flared up. The news spread from barrack
to barrack, and the men doubled out intent on the capture of Simmons,
the wild beast, who was heading for the Cavalry parade-ground, stopping
now and again to send back a shot and a curse in the direction of his
pursuers.

"I'll learn you to spy on me! " he shouted; "I'll learn you to give me
dorg's names! Come on the 'ole lot o' you! Colonel John Anthony Deever,
C. B. ! "--he turned toward the Infantry Mess and shook his rifle--"you
think yourself the devil of a man--but I tell you that if you put your
ugly old carcass outside o' that door, I'll make you the poorest-lookin'
man in the army. Come out, Colonel John Anthony Deever, C. B. ! Come
out and see me practiss on the rainge. I'm the crack shot of the 'ole
bloomin' battalion. " In proof of which statement Simmons fired at the
lighted windows of the mess-house.

"Private Simmons, E Comp'ny, on the Cavalry p'rade-ground, Sir, with
thirty rounds," said a Sergeant breathlessly to the Colonel. "Shootin'
right and lef', Sir. Shot Private Losson. What's to be done, Sir? "

Colonel John Anthony Deever, C. B. , sallied out, only to be saluted by s
spurt of dust at his feet.

"Pull up! " said the Second in Command; "I don't want my step in that
way, Colonel. He's as dangerous as a mad dog. "

"Shoot him like one, then," said the Colonel, bitterly, "if he won't
take his chance, My regiment, too! If it had been the Towheads I could
have under stood. "

Private Simmons had occupied a strong position near a well on the edge
of the parade-ground, and was defying the regiment to come on. The
regiment was not anxious to comply, for there is small honor in being
shot by a fellow-private. Only Corporal Slane, rifle in band, threw
himself down on the ground, and wormed his way toward the well.

"Don't shoot," said he to the men round him; "like as not you'll hit me.
I'll catch the beggar, livin'. "

Simmons ceased shouting for a while, and the noise of trap-wheels could
be heard across the plain.
Major Oldyn, commanding the Horse Battery,
was coming back from a dinner in the Civil Lines; was driving after his
usual custom--that is to say, as fast as the horse could go.

"A orf'cer! A blooming spangled orf'cer," shrieked Simmons; "I'll make a
scarecrow of that orf'cer! " The trap stopped.

"What's this? " demanded the Major of Gunners. "You there, drop your
rifle. "

"Why, it's Jerry Blazes! I ain't got no quarrel with you, Jerry Blazes.
Pass frien', an' all's well! "

But Jerry Blazes had not the faintest intention of passing a dangerous
murderer. He was, as his adoring Battery swore long and fervently,
without knowledge of fear, and they were surely the best judges, for
Jerry Blazes, it was notorious, had done his possible to kill a man each
time the Battery went out.

He walked toward Simmons, with the intention of rushing him, and
knocking him down.

"Don't make me do it, Sir," said Simmons; "I ain't got nothing agin you.
Ah! you would? "--the Major broke into a run--"Take that then! "

The Major dropped with a bullet through his shoulder, and Simmons stood
over him. He had lost the satisfaction of killing Losson in the desired
way: hut here was a helpless body to his hand. Should be slip in another
cartridge, and blow off the head, or with the butt smash in the white
face? He stopped to consider, and a cry went up from the far side of
the parade-ground: "He's killed Jerry Blazes! " But in the shelter of the
well-pillars Simmons was safe except when he stepped out to fire. "I'll
blow yer 'andsome 'ead off, Jerry Blazes," said Simmons, reflectively.
"Six an' three is nine an one is ten, an' that leaves me another
nineteen, an' one for myself. " He tugged at the string of the second
packet of ammunition. Corporal Slane crawled out of the shadow of a bank
into the moonlight.

"I see you! " said Simmons. "Come a bit furder on an' I'll do for you. "

"I'm comm'," said Corporal Slane, briefly; "you've done a bad day's
work, Sim. Come out 'ere an' come back with me. "

"Come to,"--laughed Simmons, sending a cartridge home with his thumb.
"Not before I've settled you an' Jerry Blazes. "

The Corporal was lying at full length in the dust of the parade-ground,
a rifle under him. Some of the less-cautious men in the distance
shouted: "Shoot 'im! Shoot 'im, Slane! "

"You move 'and or foot, Slane," said Simmons, "an' I'll kick Jerry
Blazes' 'ead in, and shoot you after. "

"I ain't movin'," said the Corporal, raising his head; "you daren't 'it
a man on 'is legs. Let go o' Jerry Blazes an' come out o' that with your
fistes. Come an' 'it me. You daren't, you bloomin' dog-shooter! "

"I dare. "

"You lie, you man-sticker. You sneakin', Sheeny butcher, you lie. See
there! " Slane kicked the rifle away, and stood up in the peril of his
life. "Come on, now! "

The temptation was more than Simmons could resist, for the Corporal in
his white clothes offered a perfect mark.

"Don't misname me," shouted Simmons, firing as he spoke. The shot
missed, and the shooter, blind with rage, threw his rifle down and
rushed at Slane from the protection of the well. Within striking
distance, he kicked savagely at Slane's stomach, but the weedy Corporal
knew something of Simmons's weakness, and knew, too, the deadly guard
for that kick. Bowing forward and drawing up his right leg till the heel
of the right foot was set some three inches above the inside of the left
knee-cap, he met the blow standing on one leg--exactly as Gonds stand
when they meditate--and ready for the fall that would follow. There was
an oath, the Corporal fell over his own left as shinbone met shinbone,
and the Private collapsed, his right leg broken an inch above the ankle.

"'Pity you don't know that guard, Sim," said Slane, spitting out the
dust as he rose. Then raising his voice, "Come an' take him orf.
I've bruk 'is leg. " This was not strictly true, for the Private had
accomplished his own downfall, since it is the special merit of
that leg-guard that the harder the kick the greater the kicker's
discomfiture.

Slane walked to Jerry Blazes and hung over him with ostentatious
anxiety, while Simmons, weeping with pain, was carried away. "'Ope you
ain't 'urt badly, Sir," said Slane. The Major had fainted, and there was
an ugly, ragged hole through the top of his arm. Slane knelt down
and murmured. "S'elp me, I believe 'e's dead. Well, if that ain't my
blooming luck all over! "

But the Major was destined to lead his Battery afield for many a long
day with unshaken nerve. He was removed, and nursed and petted into
convalescence, while the Battery discussed the wisdom of capturing
Simmons, and blowing him from a gun. They idolized their Major, and his
reappearance on parade brought about a scene nowhere provided for in the
Army Regulations.

Great, too, was the glory that fell to Slane's share. The Gunners would
have made him drunk thrice a day for at least a fortnight. Even the
Colonel of his own regiment complimented him upon his coolness, and the
local paper called him a hero. These things did not puff him up. When
the Major offered him money and thanks, the virtuous Corporal took the
one and put aside the other. But he had a request to make and prefaced
it with many a "Beg y'pardon, Sir. " Could the Major see his way to
letting the Slane-M'Kenna wedding be adorned by the presence of four
Battery horses to pull a hired barouche? The Major could, and so could
the Battery. Excessively so. It was a gorgeous wedding.

* * * * *

"Wot did I do it for? " said Corporal Slane. "For the 'orses O' course.
Jhansi ain't a beauty to look at, but I wasn't goin' to 'ave a hired
turn-out. Jerry Blazes? If I 'adn't 'a' wanted something, Sim might ha'
blowed Jerry Blazes' blooming 'ead into Hirish stew for aught I'd 'a'
cared. "

And they hanged Private Simmons--hanged him as high as Haman in hollow
square of the regiment; and the Colonel said it was Drink; and the
Chaplain was sure it was the Devil; and Simmons fancied it was both,
but he didn't know, and only hoped his fate would be a warning to
his companions; and half a dozen "intelligent publicists" wrote six
beautiful leading articles on "'The Prevalence of Crime in the Army. "

But not a soul thought of comparing the "bloody-minded Simmons" to the
squawking, gaping schoolgirl with which this story opens.




THE ENLIGHTENMENTS OF PAGETT, M. P.

"Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring
with their importunate chink while thousands of great cattle,
reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are
silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the
only inhabitants of the field--that, of course, they are many in
number or that, after all, they are other than the little,
shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of
the hour. "
--Burke: "Reflections on the Revolution in France. "

They were sitting in the veranda of "the splendid palace of an Indian
Pro-Consul"; surrounded by all the glory and mystery of the immemorial
East. In plain English it was a one-storied, ten-roomed, whitewashed,
mud-roofed bungalow, set in a dry garden of dusty tamarisk trees and
divided from the road by a low mud wall. The green parrots screamed
overhead as they flew in battalions to the river for their morning
drink. Beyond the wall, clouds of fine dust showed where the cattle and
goats of the city were passing afield to graze. The remorseless white
light of the winter sunshine of Northern India lay upon everything and
improved nothing, from the whining Persian-wheel by the lawn-tennis
court to the long perspective of level road and the blue, domed tombs of
Mohammedan saints just visible above the trees.

"A Happy New Year," said Orde to his guest. "It's the first you've ever
spent out of England, isn't it? "

"Yes. 'Happy New Year," said Pagett, smiling at the sunshine. "What a
divine climate you have here! Just think of the brown cold fog hanging
over London now! " And he rubbed his hands.

It was more than twenty years since he had last seen Orde, his
schoolmate, and their paths in the world had divided early. The one
had quitted college to become a cog-wheel in the machinery of the great
Indian Government; the other more blessed with goods, had been whirled
into a similar position in the English scheme. Three successive
elections had not affected Pagett's position with a loyal constituency,
and he had grown insensibly to regard himself in some sort as a pillar
of the Empire, whose real worth would be known later on. After a few
years of conscientious attendance at many divisions, after newspaper
battles innumerable and the publication of interminable correspondence,
and more hasty oratory than in his calmer moments he cared to think
upon, it occurred to him, as it had occurred to many of his fellows in
Parliament, that a tour to India would enable him to sweep a larger lyre
and address himself to the problems of Imperial administration with a
firmer hand. Accepting, therefore, a general invitation extended to him
by Orde some years before, Pagett bad taken ship to Karachi, and only
overnight had been received with joy by the Deputy-Commissioner of
Amara. They had sat late, discussing the changes and chances of twenty
years, recalling the names of the dead, and weighing the futures of the
living, as is the custom of men meeting after intervals of action.

Next morning they smoked the after-breakfast pipe in the veranda, still
regarding each other curiously, Pagett, in a light grey frock-coat and
garments much too thin for the time of the year, and a puggried
sun-hat carefully and wonderfully made, Orde in a shooting coat, riding
breeches, brown cowhide boots with spurs, and a battered flax helmet. He
had ridden some miles in the early morning to inspect a doubtful river
dam. The men's faces differed as much as their attire. Orde's worn and
wrinkled around the eyes, and grizzled at the temples, was the harder
and more square of the two, and it was with something like envy that the
owner looked at the comfortable outlines of Pagett's blandly receptive
countenance, the clear skin, the untroubled eye, and the mobile,
clean-shaved lips.

"And this is India! " said Pagett for the twentieth time staring long and
intently at the grey feathering of the tamarisks.

"One portion of India only. It's very much like this for 300 miles
in every direction. By the way, now that you have rested a little--I
wouldn't ask the old question before--what d'you think of the country? "

"'Tis the most pervasive country that ever yet was seen. I acquired
several pounds of your country coming up from Karachi. The air is heavy
with it, and for miles and miles along that distressful eternity of rail
there's no horizon to show where air and earth separate. "

"Yes. It isn't easy to see truly or far in India. But you had a decent
passage out, hadn't you? "

"Very good on the whole. Your Anglo-Indian may be unsympathetic about
one's political views; but he has reduced ship life to a science. "

"The Anglo-Indian is a political orphan, and if he's wise he won't be
in a hurry to be adopted by your party grandmothers. But how were your
companions, unsympathetic? "

"Well, there was a man called Dawlishe, a judge somewhere in this
country it seems, and a capital partner at whist by the way, and when I
wanted to talk to him about the progress of India in a political sense
(Orde hid a grin, which might or might not have been sympathetic), the
National Congress movement, and other things in which, as a Member of
Parliament, I'm of course interested, he shifted the subject, and when I
once cornered him, he looked me calmly in the eye, and said: 'That's all
Tommy rot. Come and have a game at Bull. ' You may laugh; but that isn't
the way to treat a great and important question; and, knowing who I was,
well, I thought it rather rude, don't you know; and yet Dawlishe is a
thoroughly good fellow. "

"Yes; he's a friend of mine, and one of the straightest men I know. I
suppose, like many Anglo-Indians, he felt it was hopeless to give you
any just idea of any Indian question without the documents before you,
and in this case the documents you want are the country and the people. "

"Precisely. That was why I came straight to you, bringing an open mind
to bear on things. I'm anxious to know what popular feeling in India
is really like y'know, now that it has wakened into political life.
The National Congress, in spite of Dawlishe, must have caused great
excitement among the masses? "

"On the contrary, nothing could be more tranquil than the state of
popular feeling; and as to excitement, the people would as soon be
excited over the 'Rule of Three' as over the Congress. "

"Excuse me, Orde, but do you think you are a fair judge? Isn't the
official Anglo-Indian naturally jealous of any external influences
that might move the masses, and so much opposed to liberal ideas, truly
liberal ideas, that he can scarcely be expected to regard a popular
movement with fairness? "

"What did Dawlishe say about Tommy Rot? Think a moment, old man. You
and I were brought up together; taught by the same tutors, read the same
books, lived the same life, and new languages, and work among new
races; while you, more fortunate, remain at home. Why should I change
my mind--our mind--because I change my sky? Why should I and the
few hundred Englishmen in my service become unreasonable, prejudiced
fossils, while you and your newer friends alone remain bright and
open-minded? You surely don't fancy civilians are members of a Primrose
League? "

"Of course not, but the mere position of an English official gives him
a point of view which cannot but bias his mind on this question. " Pagett
moved his knee up and down a little uneasily as he spoke.

"That sounds plausible enough, but, like more plausible notions on
Indian matters, I believe it's a mistake. You'll find when you come to
consult the unofficial Briton that our fault, as a class--I speak of
the civilian now--is rather to magnify the progress that has been made
toward liberal institutions. It is of English origin, such as it is, and
the stress of our work since the Mutiny--only thirty years ago--has
been in that direction. No, I think you will get no fairer or more
dispassionate view of the Congress business than such men as I can give
you. But I may as well say at once that those who know most of India,
from the inside, are inclined to wonder at the noise our scarcely begun
experiment makes in England. "

"But surely the gathering together of Congress delegates is of itself a
new thing. "

"There's nothing new under the sun When Europe was a jungle half Asia
flocked to the canonical conferences of Buddhism; and for centuries the
people have gathered at Pun, Hurdwar, Trimbak, and Benares in immense
numbers. A great meeting, what you call a mass meeting, is really one of
the oldest and most popular of Indian institutions in this topsy-turvy
land, and though they have been employed in clerical work for
generations they have no practical knowledge of affairs. A ship's clerk
is a useful person, but he is scarcely the captain; and an orderly room
writer, however smart he may be, is not the colonel. You see, the writer
class in India has never till now aspired to anything like command. It
wasn't allowed to. The Indian gentleman, for thousands of years past,
has resembled Victor Hugo's noble:

"'Un vrai sire Chatelain Laisse ecrire Le vilain. Sa main digne Quand il
signe Egratigne Le velin. '

"And the little egratignures he most likes to make have been scored
pretty deeply by the sword. "

"But this is childish and mediaeval nonsense! "

"Precisely; and from your, or rather our, point of view the pen is
mightier than the sword. In this country it's otherwise. The fault
lies in our Indian balances, not yet adjusted to civilized weights and
measures. "

"Well, at all events, this literary class represent the natural
aspirations and wishes of the people at large, though it may not exactly
lead them, and, in spite of all you say, Orde, I defy you to find
a really sound English Radical who would not sympathize with those
aspirations. "

Pagett spoke with some warmth, and he had scarcely ceased when a
well-appointed dog-cart turned into the compound gates, and Orde
rose saying: "Here is Edwards, the Master of the Lodge I neglect so
diligently, come to talk about accounts, I suppose. "

As the vehicle drove up under the porch Pagett also rose, saying with
the trained effusion born of much practice: "But this is also my friend,
my old and valued friend Edwards. I'm delighted to see you. I knew you
were in India, but not exactly where. "

"Then it isn't accounts, Mr. Edwards," said Orde, cheerily.

"Why, no, sir; I heard Mr. Pagett was coming, and as our works were
closed for the New Year I thought I would drive over and see him. "

"A very happy thought. Mr. Edwards, you may not know, Orde, was a
leading member of our Radical Club at Switchton when I was beginning
political life, and I owe much to his exertions. There's no pleasure
like meeting an old friend, except, perhaps, making a new one. I
suppose, Mr. Edwards, you stick to the good old cause? "

"Well, you see, sir, things are different out here. There's precious
little one can find to say against the Government, which was the main of
our talk at home, and them that do say things are not the sort o' people
a man who respects himself would like to be mixed up with. There are no
politics, in a manner of speaking, in India. It's all work. "

"Surely you are mistaken, my good friend. Why I have come all the way
from England just to see the working of this great National movement. "

"I don't know where you're going to find the nation as moves to begin
with, and then you'll be hard put to it to find what they are moving
about. It's like this, sir," said Edwards, who had not quite relished
being called "my good friend. " "They haven't got any grievance--nothing
to hit with, don't you see, sir; and then there's not much to hit
against, because the Government is more like a kind of general
Providence, directing an old-established state of things, than that
at home, where there's something new thrown down for us to fight about
every three months. "

"You are probably, in your workshops, full of English mechanics, out of
the way of learning what the masses think. "

"I don't know so much about that. There are four of us English foremen,
and between seven and eight hundred native fitters, smiths, carpenters,
painters, and such like. "

"And they are full of the Congress, of course? "

"Never hear a word of it from year's end to year's end, and I speak the
talk too. But I wanted to ask how things are going on at home--old Tyler
and Brown and the rest? "

"We will speak of them presently, but your account of the indifference
of your men surprises me almost as much as your own. I fear you are a
backslider from the good old doctrine, Edwards. " Pagett spoke as one who
mourned the death of a near relative.

"Not a bit, Sir, but I should be if I took up with a parcel of baboos,
pleaders, and schoolboys, as never did a day's work in their lives, and
couldn't if they tried. And if you was to poll us English railway
men, mechanics, tradespeople, and the like of that all up and down the
country from Peshawur to Calcutta, you would find us mostly in a tale
together. And yet you'd know we're the same English you pay some respect
to at home at 'lection time, and we have the pull o' knowing something
about it. "

"This is very curious, but you will let me come and see you, and perhaps
you will kindly show me the railway works, and we will talk things over
at leisure. And about all old friends and old times," added Pagett,
detecting with quick insight a look of disappointment in the mechanic's
face.