No More Learning

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.