No More Learning

They are simply the rank and file--the food for
fever--sharing with the ryot and the plough-bullock the honor of being
the plinth on which the State rests. The older ones have lost their
aspirations; the younger are putting theirs aside with a sigh. Both
learn to endure patiently until the end of the day. Twelve years in the
rank and file, men say, will sap the hearts of the bravest and dull the
wits of the most keen.

Out of this life Otis Yeere had fled for a few months, drifting, for the
sake of a little masculine society, into Simla. When his leave was over
he would return to his swampy, sour-green, undermanned district,
the native Assistant, the native Doctor, the native Magistrate, the
steaming, sweltering Station, the ill-kempt City, and the undisguised
insolence of the Municipality that babbled away the lives of men. Life
was cheap, however. The soil spawned humanity, as it bred frogs in
the Rains, and the gap of the sickness of one season was filled to
overflowing by the fecundity of the next. Otis was unfeignedly thankful
to lay down his work for a little while and escape from the seething,
whining, weakly hive, impotent to help itself, but strong in its power
to cripple, thwart, and annoy the weary-eyed man who, by official irony,
was said to be "in charge" of it.

* * * * *

"I knew there were women-dowdies in Bengal. They come up here sometimes.
But I didn't know that there were men-dowdies, too. "

Then, for the first time, it occurred to Otis Yeere that his clothes
were rather ancestral in appearance. It will be seen from the above that
his friendship with Mrs Hauksbee had made great strides.

As that lady truthfully says, a man is never so happy as when he is
talking about himself.
From Otis Yeere's lips Mrs Hauksbee, before long,
learned everything that she wished to know about the subject of her
experiment; learned what manner of life he had led in what she vaguely
called "those awful cholera districts"; learned too, but this knowledge
came later, what manner of life he had purposed to lead and what dreams
he had dreamed in the year of grace '77, before the reality had knocked
the heart out of him. Very pleasant are the shady bridle-paths round
Prospect Hill for the telling of such confidences.

"Not yet," said Mrs. Hauksbee to Mrs. Mallowe. "Not yet. I must wait
until the man is properly dressed, at least. Great Heavens, is it
possible that he doesn't know what an honor it is to be taken up by Me! "

Mrs. Hauksbee did not reckon false modesty as one of her failings.

"Always with Mrs. Hauksbee! " murmured Mrs. Mallowe, with her sweetest
smile, to Otis. "Oh you men, you men! Here are our Punjabis growling
because you've monopolized the nicest woman in Simla.