No More Learning

He tasted it as the
puppy tastes the soap. Only he came late to the eating, with a growing
set of teeth. He had no sense of balance--just like the puppy--and could
not understand why he was not treated with the consideration he received
under his father's roof. This hurt his feelings.

He quarrelled with other boys, and, being sensitive to the marrow,
remembered these quarrels, and they excited him. He found whist, and
gymkhanas, and things of that kind (meant to amuse one after office)
good; but he took them seriously too, just as he took the "head" that
followed after drink. He lost his money over whist and gymkhanas because
they were new to him.

He took his losses seriously, and wasted as much energy and interest
over a two-gold-mohur race for maiden ekka-ponies with their manes
hogged, as if it had been the Derby. One-half of this came from
inexperience--much as the puppy squabbles with the corner of the
hearth-rug--and the other half from the dizziness bred by stumbling out
of his quiet life into the glare and excitement of a livelier one. No
one told him about the soap and the blacking because an average man
takes it for granted that an average man is ordinarily careful in regard
to them. It was pitiful to watch The Boy knocking himself to pieces, as
an over-handled colt falls down and cuts himself when he gets away from
the groom.

This unbridled license in amusements not worth the trouble of breaking
line for, much less rioting over, endured for six months--all through
one cold weather--and then we thought that the heat and the knowledge
of having lost his money and health and lamed his horses would sober
The Boy down, and he would stand steady. In ninety-nine cases out of a
hundred this would have happened. You can see the principle working in
any Indian Station. But this particular case fell through because The
Boy was sensitive and took things seriously--as I may have said some
seven times before.
Of course, we couldn't tell how his excesses struck
him personally.

They were nothing very heart-breaking or above the average. He might be
crippled for life financially, and want a little nursing.

Still the memory of his performances would wither away in one hot
weather, and the shroff would help him to tide over the money troubles.
But he must have taken another view altogether and have believed himself
ruined beyond redemption. His Colonel talked to him severely when the
cold weather ended. That made him more wretched than ever; and it was
only an ordinary "Colonel's wigging! "

What follows is a curious instance of the fashion in which we are all
linked together and made responsible for one another. THE thing that
kicked the beam in The Boy's mind was a remark that a woman made when he
was talking to her. There is no use in repeating it, for it was only a
cruel little sentence, rapped out before thinking, that made him flush
to the roots of his hair. He kept himself to himself for three days, and
then put in for two days' leave to go shooting near a Canal Engineer's
Rest House about thirty miles out. He got his leave, and that night
at Mess was noisier and more offensive than ever. He said that he was
"going to shoot big game," and left at half-past ten o'clock in an ekka.

Partridge--which was the only thing a man could get near the Rest
House--is not big game; so every one laughed.

Next morning one of the Majors came in from short leave, and heard
that The Boy had gone out to shoot "big game. " The Major had taken an
interest in The Boy, and had, more than once, tried to check him in
the cold weather.