No More Learning

"No wise man has a policy," said the Viceroy. "A Policy is the blackmail
levied on the Fool by the Unforeseen. I am not the former, and I do not
believe in the latter. "

I do not quite see what this means, unless it refers to an Insurance
Policy. Perhaps it was the Viceroy's way of saying:--"Lie low. "

That season, came up to Simla one of these crazy people with only a
single idea. These are the men who make things move; but they are not
nice to talk to. This man's name was Mellish, and he had lived for
fifteen years on land of his own, in Lower Bengal, studying cholera. He
held that cholera was a germ that propagated itself as it flew through a
muggy atmosphere; and stuck in the branches of trees like a wool-flake.
The germ could be rendered sterile, he said, by "Mellish's Own
Invincible Fumigatory"--a heavy violet-black powder--"the result of
fifteen years' scientific investigation, Sir! "

Inventors seem very much alike as a caste. They talk loudly, especially
about "conspiracies of monopolists;" they beat upon the table with
their fists; and they secrete fragments of their inventions about their
persons.

Mellish said that there was a Medical "Ring" at Simla, headed by the
Surgeon-General, who was in league, apparently, with all the Hospital
Assistants in the Empire. I forget exactly how he proved it, but it had
something to do with "skulking up to the Hills;" and what Mellish
wanted was the independent evidence of the Viceroy--"Steward of our
Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, Sir. " So Mellish went up to Simla, with
eighty-four pounds of Fumigatory in his trunk, to speak to the Viceroy
and to show him the merits of the invention.
But it is easier to see a Viceroy than to talk to him, unless you chance
to be as important as Mellishe of Madras. He was a six-thousand-rupee
man, so great that his daughters never "married. " They "contracted
alliances. " He himself was not paid. He "received emoluments," and his
journeys about the country were "tours of observation. " His business was
to stir up the people in Madras with a long pole--as you stir up stench
in a pond--and the people had to come up out of their comfortable old
ways and gasp:--"This is Enlightenment and progress. Isn't it fine! "
Then they gave Mellishe statues and jasmine garlands, in the hope of
getting rid of him.

Mellishe came up to Simla "to confer with the Viceroy. " That was one of
his perquisites. The Viceroy knew nothing of Mellishe except that he was
"one of those middle-class deities who seem necessary to the spiritual
comfort of this Paradise of the Middle-classes," and that, in all
probability, he had "suggested, designed, founded, and endowed all the
public institutions in Madras. " Which proves that His Excellency, though
dreamy, had experience of the ways of six-thousand-rupee men.

Mellishe's name was E. Mellishe and Mellish's was E. S. Mellish, and
they were both staying at the same hotel, and the Fate that looks after
the Indian Empire ordained that Wonder should blunder and drop the final
"e;" that the Chaprassi should help him, and that the note which ran:
"Dear Mr.