No More Learning

A King or courtier or a courtesan or a Community was going to
die or get a new Constitution, or do something that was important on
the other side of the world, and the paper was to be held open till the
latest possible minute in order to catch the telegram.

It was a pitchy-black night, as stifling as a June night can be, and
the loo, the red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among the
tinder-dry trees and pretending that the rain was on its heels.

Now and again a spot of almost boiling water would fall on the dust with
the flop of a frog, but all our weary world knew that was only pretence.
It was a shade cooler in the press-room than the office, so I sat there,
while the type ticked and clicked, and the night-jars hooted at the
windows, and the all but naked compositors wiped the sweat from their
foreheads and called for water. The thing that was keeping us back,
whatever it was, would not come off, though the loo dropped and the last
type was set, and the whole round earth stood still in the choking heat,
with its finger on its lip, to wait the event. I drowsed, and wondered
whether the telegraph was a blessing, and whether this dying man, or
struggling people, might be aware of the inconvenience the delay was
causing. There was no special reason beyond the heat and worry to make
tension, but, as the clock-hands crept up to three o'clock and the
machines spun their fly-wheels two and three times to see that all was
in order, before I said the word that would set them off, I could have
shrieked aloud.

Then the roar and rattle of the wheels shivered the quiet into little
bits. I rose to go away, but two men in white clothes stood in front
of me. The first one said, "It's him! " The second said, "So it is! " And
they both laughed almost as loudly as the machinery roared, and mopped
their foreheads. We seed there was a light burning across the road,
and we were sleeping in that ditch there for coolness, and I said to my
friend here, "The office is open. Let's come along and speak to him as
turned us back from Degumber State," said the smaller of the two. He was
the man I had met in the Mhow train, and his fellow was the red-bearded
man of Marwar Junction.
There was no mistaking the eyebrows of the one
or the beard of the other.

I was not pleased, because I wished to go to sleep, not to squabble with
loafers. "What do you want? " I asked.

"Half an hour's talk with you, cool and comfortable, in the office,"
said the red-bearded man. "We'd like some drink,--the Contrack doesn't
begin yet, Peachey, so you needn't look,--but what we really want is
advice. We don't want money. We ask you as a favour, because we found
out you did us a bad turn about Degumber State. "

I led from the press-room to the stifling office with the maps on the
walls, and the red-haired man rubbed his hands. "That's something like,"
said he. "This was the proper shop to come to.

"Now, Sir, let me introduce you to Brother Peachey Carnehan, that's
him, and Brother Daniel Dravot, that is me, and the less said about
our professions the better, for we have been most things in our
time--soldier, sailor, compositor, photographer, proof-reader,
street-preacher, and correspondents of the 'Backwoodsman' when we
thought the paper wanted one. Carnehan is sober, and so am I. Look at us
first, and see that's sure. It will save you cutting into my talk. We'll
take one of your cigars apiece, and you shall see us light up.