No More Learning

Neither you nor I knew there was so much evil in the world.
--Hindu Proverb.

This began in a practical joke; but it has gone far enough now, and is
getting serious.

Platte, the Subaltern, being poor, had a Waterbury watch and a plain
leather guard.

The Colonel had a Waterbury watch also, and for guard, the lip-strap of
a curb-chain. Lip-straps make the best watch guards.

They are strong and short. Between a lip-strap and an ordinary leather
guard there is no great difference; between one Waterbury watch
and another there is none at all. Every one in the station knew the
Colonel's lip-strap. He was not a horsey man, but he liked people to
believe he had been one once; and he wove fantastic stories of the
hunting-bridle to which this particular lip-strap had belonged.
Otherwise he was painfully religious.

Platte and the Colonel were dressing at the Club--both late for their
engagements, and both in a hurry. That was Kismet. The two watches
were on a shelf below the looking-glass--guards hanging down. That was
carelessness.
Platte changed first, snatched a watch, looked in the
glass, settled his tie, and ran. Forty seconds later, the Colonel did
exactly the same thing; each man taking the other's watch.

You may have noticed that many religious people are deeply suspicious.
They seem--for purely religious purposes, of course--to know more about
iniquity than the Unregenerate. Perhaps they were specially bad before
they became converted! At any rate, in the imputation of things evil,
and in putting the worst construction on things innocent, a certain type
of good people may be trusted to surpass all others. The Colonel and
his Wife were of that type. But the Colonel's Wife was the worst. She
manufactured the Station scandal, and--TALKED TO HER AYAH! Nothing
more need be said. The Colonel's Wife broke up the Laplaces's home. The
Colonel's Wife stopped the Ferris-Haughtrey engagement. The Colonel's
Wife induced young Buxton to keep his wife down in the Plains through
the first year of the marriage. Whereby little Mrs.

Buxton died, and the baby with her. These things will be remembered
against the Colonel's Wife so long as there is a regiment in the
country.