No More Learning

Janoo refuses
flatly, Azizun is a veiled woman somewhere near Bareilly--lost in this
big India of ours. I cannot again take the law into my own hands, and
speak to the seal-cutter; for certain am I that, not only would Suddhoo
disbelieve me, but this step would end in the poisoning of Janoo, who is
bound hand and foot by her debt to the bunnia. Suddhoo is an old dotard;
and whenever we meet mumbles my idiotic joke that the Sirkar rather
patronizes the Black Art than otherwise. His son is well now; but
Suddhoo is completely under the influence of the seal-cutter, by whose
advice he regulates the affairs of his life. Janoo watches daily the
money that she hoped to wheedle out of Suddhoo taken by the seal-cutter,
and becomes daily more furious and sullen.

She will never tell, because she dare not; but, unless something
happens to prevent her, I am afraid that the seal-cutter will die of
cholera--the white arsenic kind--about the middle of May. And thus I
shall have to be privy to a murder in the House of Suddhoo.




HIS WEDDED WIFE.

Cry "Murder! " in the market-place, and each
Will turn upon his neighbor anxious eyes
That ask:--"Art thou the man? "
We hunted Cain,
Some centuries ago, across the world,
That bred the fear our own misdeeds maintain
Today.
--Vibart's Moralities.

Shakespeare says something about worms, or it may be giants or beetles,
turning if you tread on them too severely. The safest plan is never to
tread on a worm--not even on the last new subaltern from Home, with his
buttons hardly out of their tissue paper, and the red of sappy English
beef in his cheeks. This is the story of the worm that turned.
For
the sake of brevity, we will call Henry Augustus Ramsay Faizanne, "The
Worm," although he really was an exceedingly pretty boy, without a hair
on his face, and with a waist like a girl's when he came out to the
Second "Shikarris" and was made unhappy in several ways. The "Shikarris"
are a high-caste regiment, and you must be able to do things well--play
a banjo or ride more than a little, or sing, or act--to get on with
them.

The Worm did nothing except fall off his pony, and knock chips out of
gate-posts with his trap. Even that became monotonous after a time. He
objected to whist, cut the cloth at billiards, sang out of tune, kept
very much to himself, and wrote to his Mamma and sisters at Home. Four
of these five things were vices which the "Shikarris" objected to and
set themselves to eradicate. Every one knows how subalterns are, by
brother subalterns, softened and not permitted to be ferocious. It is
good and wholesome, and does no one any harm, unless tempers are lost;
and then there is trouble. There was a man once--but that is another
story.

The "Shikarris" shikarred The Worm very much, and he bore everything
without winking. He was so good and so anxious to learn, and flushed
so pink, that his education was cut short, and he was left to his own
devices by every one except the Senior Subaltern, who continued to make
life a burden to The Worm. The Senior Subaltern meant no harm; but his
chaff was coarse, and he didn't quite understand where to stop. He had
been waiting too long for his company; and that always sours a man. Also
he was in love, which made him worse.

One day, after he had borrowed The Worm's trap for a lady who never
existed, had used it himself all the afternoon, had sent a note to The
Worm purporting to come from the lady, and was telling the Mess all
about it, The Worm rose in his place and said, in his quiet, ladylike
voice: "That was a very pretty sell; but I'll lay you a month's pay to
a month's pay when you get your step, that I work a sell on you that
you'll remember for the rest of your days, and the Regiment after you
when you're dead or broke. " The Worm wasn't angry in the least, and the
rest of the Mess shouted.