Sec. 4. MR. AND MRS. CORNELIUS GOSLING-GREEN.
It was Sunday--and therefore John Bruce, the Engineering CollegeProfessor, was exceptionally busy. On a-week-day he only had to deliverhis carefully prepared lectures, interview students, read and returnessays, take the chair at meetings of college societies, coach one ortwo "specialists," superintend the games on the college gymkhana ground,interview seekers after truth and perverters of the same, write letterson various matters of college business, visit the hostel, set questionpapers and correct answers, attend common-room meetings, write articlesfor the college magazine and papers for the Scientific, Philosophical,Shakespearean, Mathematical, Debating, Literary, Historical, Students',Old Boys', or some other "union" and, if God willed, get a littleexercise and private study at his beloved "subject" and invention,before preparing for the morrow.
On Sundays, the thousand and one things crowded out of the programmewere to be cleared up, his home mail was to be written, and then arrearsof work had to be attacked.
At four o'clock he addressed Roy Pittenweem and Mrs. MacDougall, hisdogs, and said:--
"There's a bloomin' bun-snatch somewhere, you fellers, don't it?".Though a Professor and one of the most keen and earnest workmen inIndia, his own college blazers were not quite worn out, and Life, thegreat Artist, had not yet done much sketching on the canvas of hisface--in spite of his daily contact with the Science Professor, WilliamGreatorex Bonnett, B.A., widely known as the Mad Hatter, the greatestof whose many great achievements is his avoidance of death at the handsof his colleagues and acquaintance.
Receiving no reply beyond a wink and a waggle, he dropped his bluepencil, rose, and went to the table sacred to litter; and from a wildwelter of books, pipes, papers, golf-balls, hats, cigar-boxes,dog-collars, switches, cartridges and other sediment, he extracted alarge gilt-edged card and studied it without enthusiasm or bias.
"Large coat of arms," he murmured--"patience--no--a pay-sheet on amonument asking for time; item a hand, recently washed; ditto, a dickeybird--possibly pigeon plucked proper or gull argent; guinea-pigregardant and expectant; supporters, two bottliwallahs rampant. Crest, abum-boat flottant, and motto '_Cinq-cento-percentum_'. All done in gold.Likewise in gold and deboshed gothic, the legend 'Sir and Lady FuggilalPotipharpar, At Home. To meet Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Gosling-Green, M.P.Five p.m. C.T.' ... Now what the devil, Roy Pittenweem, _is_ C.T.? Is it'Curious Time' or 'Cut for Trumps' or a new decoration for gutterplutocrats? It _might_ mean 'Calcutta Time,' mightn't it, as theegregious Phossy and his gang would have it? Well, we'll go and lookupon the Cornmealious Gosling-Green, M.P.'s, and chasten our soul fromsinful pride--ain't it, Mrs. MacDougall?" and the Professor strolledacross to the Sports Club for a cup of tea.
In the midst of cheery converse with a non-moral and unphilosophicProfessor of Moral Philosophy, a fat youth of the name of AugustusGrobble whose life was one long picturesque pose, he sprang to his feet,remarking: "I go, Augustus, I am bidden to behold some prizeGosling-Greens or something, at 5 p.m., D.V. or D.T. or C.T. or L.S.D.or otherwise. Perhaps it was S.T. which means 'Standard Time,' and as Isaid, I go, Augustus."
Augustus Grobble was understood to return thanks piously....
"Taxi, Sahib?" inquired the messenger-boy at the door.
"Go to," said the Professor. "Also go call me a _tikka-gharri_[55] andselect a _very_ senior horse, blind, angular, withered, wilted, andanswering to the name, most obviously, of Skin-and-Grief--lest I betaken by the Grizzly-Goslings for a down-trodden plutocrat and abrother--and not seen for the fierce and 'aughty oppressor that I am."
[55] Public conveyance.
"Sahib?"
"_Tikka-gharri lao_,[56] you lazy little 'ound! Don't I speak plainEnglish?" The Professor made it a practice to "rot" when notworking--hoping thus even in India to retain sanity and the broad andwholesome outlook, for he was a very short-tempered person, easilyroused to dangerous wrath.
[56] Bring.
A carriage, upholding a pony who, in return, spasmodically moved thecarriage which gave evidence of having been where moths break throughand steal, lumbered into the Club garden, and the Professor, imploringthe jehu not to let the pony "die on him" in the Hibernian sense of theexpression, gingerly entered.
"Convey me to the gilded Potipharparian 'alls, Arthur," said he.
"Sahib?"
"Why _don't_ you listen? _Palangur Hill ki pas_[57] And don't forgetyou've to get me there at 5 p.m. C.T. or S.T.--I leave it to you,partner."
[57] To.
On arrival, the Professor concluded that if he had arrived at 5 p.m.C.T. he ought to have come at 5 p.m. S.T., or vice versa; as what hetermed 'the show' was evidently about over. Fortune favours all sorts ofpeople.
His hostess, who looked as though she had come straight out of the Bible_via_ Bond Street, and his host, who looked as though he had never comeout of Petticoat Lane at all, both accused him of being unable to workout the problem of "Find Calcutta Time given the Standard Time," and heprofessed to be proud to be able to acknowledge the truth of thecompliment.
"Come and be presented to Meester and Meesers Carneelius Garsling-Green,M.P.," said the lady, waddling before him; and her husband echoed:--
"Oah, yess. Come and be presented to Meester and MeesersGarsling-Green," waddling after him.
Mr. Cornelius Gosling-Green, M.P., proved to be a tall, drooping,melancholy creature, with "Dundreary" whiskers, reach-me-down suit ofthick cloth, wrong kind of tie, thickish boots, and no presence. Without"form" and void.
Mrs. Cornelius Gosling-Green was a Severe Person, tiny, hard-featuredand even more garrulous than her husband, who watched her anxiously andnervously as he answered any question put in her presence....
"And, oh, why, _why_ are not you Mohammedans _loyal_?" said Mrs.Cornelius Gosling-Green, to a magnificent-looking specimen of theMussulman of the old school--stately, venerable, courteous andhonourable--who stood near, looking as though he wondered what the devilhe was doing in that galley.
Turning from his friend, Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan,a fine Pathan, "Loyal, Madam! _Loyal_! Believe me we Mohammedans aremost intensely and devotedly loyal," he replied. "You have indeed beenmisled. Though you are only spending a month in India for collecting thematerials for your book or pamphlet, you must really learn _that_ much.We Mohammedans are as loyal as the English themselves.--More loyal thansome in fact," he added, with intent. The Pathan smiled meaningly.
"Ah, that's just it. I mean 'Why aren't you Mohammedans _loyal to poorIndia_?'"
The man turned and left the marquee and the garden without another word.
"Poor _bleeding_ India," corrected the Professor.
"And are _you_ a friend and worker for India?" continued the lady,turning to him and eyeing him with severity.
"I am. I do my humble possible in my obscure capacity, Mrs.Grisly-Gosling," he replied. "I _beg_ your pardon, Mrs.Grossly-Grin----that is--er--Gosling-Green, I _should_ say."
Be sure your sins will find you out. Through wilful perversion of thepleasing name the Professor had rendered himself incapable ofenunciating it.
"And what do _you_ do for India,--write, speak, organize, subscribe orwhat?" asked the lady with increasing severity.
"I work."
"In what capacity?"
"I am a professor at the Government Engineering College, here inGungapur."
"O-h-h-h-h! You're one of the overpaid idlers who bolster up theBureaucracy and batten on the....'"
"Allow me to assure you that I neither bolster, batten, nor bureau, Mrs.Grizzling--I mean _Gosling_ Green. Nor do I talk through my hat. I----"the Professor was beginning to get angry and to lose control.
"Perhaps you are one of us in disguise--a Pro-Native?"
"I am intensely Pro-Native."
The tall Pathan stared at the Professor.
"Oh, _good!_ I _beg_ your pardon! Cornelius, this gentleman is aGovernment professor and is _with us!_" said this female of the M.P.species.
&nbs
p; "That's right," gushed the Gosling. "We want a few in the enemy's campboth to spy out their weakness and to embarrass them. Now about thisUniversity business. I am going to take it up. That history affair now!_Scandalous!_ I _cannot_ tell you what a wave of indignation swept overEngland when that syllabus was drawn up. Nothing truly _Liberal_ aboutthe whole course, much less Radical. I at once said: '_I_ will see thisrighted. _I_ will go to India, and _I_ will beard the....'"
"I think it was _I_ who said it, Cornelius," remarked his much betterhalf, coldly.
"Yes, my dear Superiora, yes. Now with your help I think we can dosomething, Professor. Good. This _is_ providential. We shall be able toembarrass them now! Will you write me----"
"You are going a little too fast, I think," said the Professor. "I am a'Pro-Native' and a servant of the Pro-Native Government of India. Assuch, I don't think I can be of any service to twenty-one-day visitorswho wish to 'embarrass' the best friends of my friends the Natives, evensupposing I were the sort of gentle Judas you compliment me by imaginingme. I----"
"You distinctly say you are Pro-Native and then----"
"I repeat I am intensely Pro-Native, and so are the Viceroy, theGovernors, the entire Civil Service, the Educational Service, the ForestService, the P.W.D., the Medical Service, the Army, and every otherService and Department in India as well as every decent man in India. Weare _all_ Pro-Native, and all doing our best in our respective spheres,in spite of a deal of ignorant and officious interference and attempted'embarrassment' at the hands of the self-seeking, the foolish, thebusy-body, the idle--not to mention the vicious. What a _charming_ dayit is. I have so enjoyed the honour of meeting you."
* * * * *
"Well, my Scroobious Bird! And have they this day roasted in India sucha Gosling as shall never be put out?" inquired the non-moral andunphilosophic Professor of Moral Philosophy, a little later.
"No, my Augustus," was the reply. "It's a quacking little gosling, andwon't lead to any great commotion m the farm-yard. Nasty littlebird--like a _sat-bai_ or whatever they call those appalling things'seven-sister' birds, aren't they, that chatter and squeak all day."
"Have a long drink and tell us all about it," replied Mr. AugustusClarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble.
"Oh, same old game on the same old stage. Same old players. Leading ladyand gent changed only. Huge great hideous bungalow, like a Goanesewedding-cake, in a vast garden of symmetrically arranged blue and redglazed 'art' flower-pots. Lofty room decorated with ancestral portraitsdone by Mr. Guzzlebhoy Fustomji Paintwallah; green glass chandeliers andbig blue and white tin balls; mauve carpet with purple azure roses;wall-paper, bright pink with red lilies and yellow cabbages; immensemouldy mirrors, and a tin alarm clock. Big crowd of all the fly-blownrich knaves of the place who have got more than they want out ofGovernment or else haven't got enough. Only novelty was a splendidPathan chap, got-up in English except for the conical cap and puggri.Extraordinarily like Ross-Ellison, except that he had long black Pathanhair on his shoulders. Been to England; barrister probably, and seemedthe most viciously seditious of the lot. Silly ignorant Goslings in themiddle saying to Brahmins, 'And you are Muscleman, aren't you, or areyou a Dhobi?' and to Parsis, 'I suppose you High Caste gentlemen have tobathe _every_ day?' shoving their awful ignorance under the noses ofeverybody, and inquiring after the healths of the 'chief wives'. Sillyfatuous geese!--and then talking the wildest piffle about the 'burningquestion of the hour' and making the seditious rotters groan at theirineptitude and folly, until they cheer them up sudden-like with a bitof dam' treason and sedition they ought to be jailed for. _Jailed_. Inearly threw a fit when the old geezer, in a blaze of diamonds andglory, brought up old Phossy and presented him to the Gander, and hemurmured:--
"'My _deah_ friend,' as Phossy held on to his paw in transports, 'tothink of their casting _you_ into jail,' and old Mother Potipharsqueaked: _'Oh, this is not the forger of that name--but the eminentpoliteecian'_. But poor Gosly had thought he had been a politicalprisoner! Meant no offence. And then some little squirt of an editorprimed him with lies about the University and the new syllabus, andstraightway the Gander tried to get me on the 'embarrass the Government'lay, and talked as though he knew all about it. 'I'll get some of theladies of my committee sent out here as History-lecturers at yourUniversity,' says he. 'They'll teach pure Liberal History and inculcatetrue ideas of liberty and self-government.' I wanted to go outside andbe ill. Good old 'Paget M.P.'--takes up a 'Question' and writes a sillypamphlet on it and thinks he's said the last word.--Writtenthousands.--Don't matter so long as he does it in England.--Just theplace for him nowadays.--But when he feels he's shoved out of thelime-light by a longer-haired Johnny, it's rough luck that he should tryand get back by spending his blooming committee's money coming here anddeludin' the poor seditionist and seducin' your Hatter from hisallegiance to his salt.... Awful old fraud really--no ability whatever.Came to my college to spout once, in my time. Lord! Still he was aguest, and we let him go. Run by his missus really, I think. Why can'tshe stop at home and hammer windows? They say she went and asked theBegum of Bhopal to join her in a 'mission and crusade'. Teach the ZenanaWoman and Purdah Lady to Come Forth instead of Bring Forth. Come Forthand smash windows. Probably true. Silly Goslings. Drop 'em.... What didyou think of our bowling yesterday? With anything like a wicket yourCollege should be...."
* * * * *
Entering his lonely and sequestered bungalow that evening Mir IlderimDost Mahommed changed his Pathan dress for European dining-kit, removedhis beard and wig, and became Mr. Robin Ross-Ellison. After dinner hewrote to the eminent Cold weather Visitor to India, Mr. CorneliusGosling-Green, as follows--
"DEAR SIR,
"As I promised this afternoon, when you graciously condescended tohonour me with your illuminating conversation, I enclose the paperswhich I guaranteed would shed some light on certain aspects of Indianconditions, and which I consider likely to give you food for thought.
"As I was myself educated in India, was brought up to maturity withIndian students, and have lived among them in many different places, Imay claim to know something about them. As a class they are gentle,affectionate, industrious, well-meaning and highly intelligent. They arethe most malleable of human metal, the finest material for the sculptorof humanity, the most impressionable of wax. In the right hands they canbe moulded to anything, by the right leader led to any height. Andconversely, of them a devil can make fiends. By the wrong leader theycan be led down to any depth.
"The crying need of India is noble men to make noble men of these fineimpressionable youths. Read the enclosed and take it that the writer(who wrote this recently in Gungapur Jail) is typical of a large classof misled, much-to-be-pitied youths, wrecked and ruined anddestroyed--their undoing begun by an unspeakably false and spuriouseducational ideal, and completed by the writings, and the spoken wordsof heartless unscrupulous scoundrels who use them to their own vileends.
"Read, Sir, and realize how truly noble, useful and beautiful is yourgreat work of endeavouring to embarrass our wicked Government, to weakenits prestige here and in England, to encourage its enemies, to increasediscontent and unrest, to turn the thoughts of students to matterspolitical, and, in short, to carry on the good work of the usualSelf-advertising Visitation M.P.
"Humbly thanking your Honour, and wishing your Honour precisely thesuccesses and rewards that your Honour deserves,
"I remain,
"The dust of your Honour's feet,
"ILDERIM DOST MAHOMMED."
And Mr. Cornelius Gosling-Green, M.P., read as follows:--
... And so I am to be hanged by the neck till I am dead, am I? And for amurder which I never committed, and in the perpetration of which I hadno hands? Is it, my masters? I trow so. But I can afford to spit--for Idid commit a murder, nevertheless, a beautiful secret murder that no onecould possibly ever bring to my home or cast in my tooth.
"Well, well! Hang me and grin in sleeve
--and I will laugh on other sideof face while dancing on nothing--for if you think you are doing me ineye, I know I have done you in eye!
"Yes. _I_ murdered Mr. Spensonly, the Chief Secretary of the NuddeeRiver Commission.
"As the Latin-and-Greeks used to say, '_Solo fesit_'!
"You think Mr. Spensonly died of plague? So he did. And who caused himto have plague? In short, who _plagued_ him? (Ha! Ha! An infinite jest!)You shall know all about it and about, as Omar says, for I am going nowto write my autobiography of myself, as all great so-called Criminalshave done, for the admiration of mankind and the benefit of posterity.And my fellow-brothers and family-members shall proudly publish it withmy photo--that of a great Patriot Hero and second Mazzini, Robespierre,Kossuth, Garibaldi, Wallace, Charlotte Corday, Kosciusko, and Mr. RobertBruce (of spider fame).
"And I shall welcome death and embrace the headsman ere making lastspeech and dying confession. Having long desired to know what liesBeyond, I shall make virtue of necessity and seize opportunity (ofgetting to know) to play hero and die gamish.
"Not like the Pathan murderer who walked about in front of condemnedcell with Koran balanced on head, crying to his Prophet to save him, anddefying Englishes to touch him. Of course they cooked his geese, Koranor not. One warder does more than many Prophets in Gungapur Jail. (He!He! Quite good epigram and nice cynicality of educated man.) Thedegraded and unpolished fellow decoyed two little girls into empty houseto steal their jewellery, and cut off fingers and noses and ears to getrings and nose-jewels and ear-drops, and left to die. Holy Fakir,gentleman of course! Pooh! and Bah! for all holy men. I give spurningsto them all for fools, knaves, or hypocrites. There are no gods any morefor educated gentleman, except himself, and that's very good god toworship and make offering to (Ha! Ha! What a wit will be lost to thesilly world when it permits itself to lose me.)
"Well, to return to the sheep, as the European proverb has it. I wasborn here in Gungapur, which will also have honour of being mydeath-and-cremation place, of poor but honest parent on thirty rupees amensem. He was very clever fellow and sent five sons to Primary School,Middle School, High School and Gungapur Government College at cost ofover hundred rupees a month, all out of his thirty rupees a mensem. Healways used proverb 'Politeness lubricates wheels of life and palmalso,' and he obliged any man who made it worth his while. But he fellinto bad odours at hands of Mr. Spensonly owing to folly ofbribing-fellow sending cash to office and the letter getting into Mr.Spensonly's post-bag and opening by mistake.
"But the Sahib took me up into his office to soften blow to progenitorand that shows he was a bad man or his luck would not have been to takeme in and give chance to murder him.
"My good old paternal parent made me work many hours each night, andthough he knew nothing of the subjects he could read English and wouldhear all my lessons and other brothers', and we had to say Skagger Rack,Cattegat, Scaw Fell and Helvellyn, and such things to him, and he wouldabuse us if we mis-arranged the figures and letters in CaH2O2 andH2SO4 and all those things in bottles. Before the MatriculationExamination he made a Graduate, whom he had got under his thumb-nail,teach us all the answers to all the back questions in all subjects tillwe knew them all by heart, and also made us learn ten long essays byheart so as to make up the required essay out of parts of them. Henearly killed my brother by starvation (saving food as well as punishingmiscreant) for failing--the only one of us who ever failed in anyexamination--which he did by writing out all first chapter of WashingtonIrving for essay, when the subject was 'Describe a sunrise in theAustralian back-blocks'. As parent said, he could have used 'A moonlightstroll by the sea-shore' and change the colour from silver to golden.But the fool was ill--so ill that he tried to kill himself and had notthe strength. He said he would rather go to the missionaries' hell, fullof Englishes, than go on learning _Egbert, Ethelbald, Ethelbert,Ethelwulf, Ethelred, Alfred, Edward the Elder, Edred, Edwy, Edgar,Ethelred the Unready_, and _If two triangles have two sides of the oneequal to two angles of the other each to each and the sides so subtendedequal then shall the bases or fourth sides be equal each to each or beisosceles_.
"Well, the progenitor kept our noses in the pie night and day and we allhated the old papa piously and wished he and we and all teachers andtext-books were burned alive.
"But we were very much loved by everybody as we were so learned andclever, and whenever the Collector or anybody came to School, the HeadMaster used to put one of us in each room and call on us to answerquestions and recite and say capes and bays without the map, and otherclever things; and when my eldest brother left I had to change coat withanother boy and do it twice sometimes, in different rooms.
"Sometimes the Educational Inspector himself would come, but thennothing could be done, for he would not ask questions that were alwaysasked and were in the book, like the teachers and Deputy Inspectors did,but questions that no one knew and had to be thought out then and there.That is no test of Learning--and any fool who has not troubled to mughis book by heart might be able to answer such questions, while the manwho had learnt every letter sat dumb.
"I hated the school and the books I knew by heart, but I loved Mr.Ganeshram Joshibhai. He was a clever cunning man, and could always tweakthe leg of pompous Head Master when he came to the room, and hadbeautiful ways of cheating him when he came to examine--better thanthose of the other teachers.
"Before we had been with him a month he could tell us things while beingexamined, and no one else knew he was doing it. The initial letters ofeach word made up the words he wanted to crib to us, and when hescratched his head with the right hand the answer was 'No,' while withthe left hand it was 'Yes'. And the clever way he taught us seditionwhile teaching us History, and appearing to praise the English!
"He would spend hours in praising the good men who rebelled and foughtand got Magnum Charter and disrespected the King and cheeked theGovernment and Members of Council. We knew all about Oliver Cromwell,Hampden, Pim, and those crappies, and many a boy who had never heard ofWolsey and Alfred the Great knew all about Felton the jolly fine patriotwho stabbed the Member of Council, Buckingham Esquire, in back.
"We learnt whole History book at home and he spent all History lessonstelling us about Plots, all the English History Plots and foreign too,and we knew about the man who killed Henry of Navarre, as well as aboutthe killing of French and American Presidents of to-day. He showedalways why successful plots succeeded and the others failed. And he gaveweeks to the American Independence War and the French Revolution.
"And all the Indian History was about the Mutiny and how and why itfailed, when he was not showing us how the Englishes have ruined androbbed India, and comparing the Golden Age of India (when no cow everdied and there was never famine, plague, police nor taxes) with themiserable condition of poor bleeding India to-day.
"He was a fine fellow and so clever that we were almost his worshippers.But I am not writing his autobiography but my own, so let him lapseherewith into posterity and well-merited oblivious.
"At the College when we could work no longer, we who had never learntcrickets and tennis and ping-pongs, would take a nice big lantern withbig windows in four sides of it, and sit publicly in the middle of thegrass at the Gardens (with our books for a blind) and make speech toeach other about Mother India and exhort each other to join together ina secret society and strike a blow for the Mother, and talk about theheroes who had died on the scaffolding for her, or who were languishingin chokey and do _poojah_ to their photos. But the superior members didno _poojah_ to anything. Then came the Emissary in the guise of a holyman (and I thought it the most dangerous disguise he could have assumed,for I wonder the police do not arrest every sannyasi and fakir onsuspicion) and brought us the Message. And he took us to hear the blindMussulman they call Ilderim the Weeper.
"All was ready and nothing lacked but the Instrument.
"Would any of us achieve eternal fame and undying glory by being thenext Instrument?
"We wouldn't. No jolly fear,
and thanks awfully.
"But we agreed to make a strike at the College and to drop a uselessBrowning pistol where it would be found, and in various other ways to beunrestful. And one of us, whom the Principal would not certify to sitfor his F.E. and was very stony hard-up, joined the Emissary and wentaway with him to be a Servant and perhaps an Instrument later on (if hecould not get a girl with a good dowry or a service of thirty rupees amensem), he was so hungry and having nothing for belly.
"Yes, as Mr. Ganeshram Joshibhai used to say, that is what the BritishGovernment does for you--educates you to be passed B.A. and educatedgent., and then grudges to give you thirty rupees a mensem and expectsyou to go searching for employment and food to put in belly! Can B.A.work with hands like _maistri_?
"Then there came the best of all my friends, a science-knowing gentlemanwho gave all his great talents to bomb. And the cream of all the milkyjoke was that he had learnt all his science free, from Government, atschool and college, and he not only used his knowledge to be first-classsuperior anarchist but he got chemicals from Government own laboratory.
"His brother was in Government Engineering College and between them theydid much--for one could make the bomb and the other could fill it.
"But they are both to be hanged at the same time that I am, and I do notgrudge that I am to be innocently hanged for their plot and the blowingup of the _bhangi_ by mistake for the Collector, for I have long aspiredto be holy martyr in Freedom's sacred cause and have photo in newspapersand be talked about.
"Besides, as I have said, I am not being done brown, as I murdered Mr.Spensonly, the Engineer.
"How I hated him!
"Why should he be big and strong while I am skinny and feeble--owing tonight-and-day burning midnight candle at both ends and unable to makethem meet?
"Besides did he not bring unmerited dishonour on grey hairs of poor oldprogenitor by finding him out in bribe-taking? Did he not bring myhonoured father's aforesaying grey hairs in sorrow to reduced pension?
"Did he not upbraid and rebuke, nay, reproach me when I made grievouslittle errors and backslippers?
"A thousand times Yea.
"But I should never have murdered him had I not caught the Plague, soout of evil cometh good once more.
"The Plague came to Gungapur in its millions and we knew not what to dobut stood like drowning man splitting at a straw.
"Superstitious Natives said it was the revenge of Goddess Kali for notsacrificing, and superstitious Europeans said it was a microbe createdby their God to punish unhygienic way of living.
"Knowing there are no gods of any sort I am in a position to state thatit was just written on our foreheads.
"To make confusion worse dumbfounded the Government of course had toseize horns of dilemma and trouble the poor. They had all cases taken tohospital and made segregation and inspection camps. They disinfectedhouses and burnt rags and even purdah women were not allowed to die inbosom of family. Of course police stole lakhs of rupees worth of clothesand furniture and said it was infected. And many good men who wereenemies of Government were falsely accused of being plague-stricken andwere dragged to hospital and were never seen again.
"Terrible calamities fell upon our city and at last it nearly lost memyself. I was seized, dragged from my family-bosom, cast into hospitaland cured. And in hospital I learned from fellow who wassubordinate-medical that rats get plague in sewers and cesspools andwhen they die of it their fleas must go elsewhere for food, and so hopon to other rat and give that poor chap plague too, by biting him withdirty mouths from dead rat, and then he dies and so _in adfinitum_, asthe poet has it. But suppose no other rat is handy, what is poor hungryflea to do? When you can't get curry, eat rice! When flea can't get rathe eats man--turns to nastier food. (He! He!)
"So when flea from plague-stricken rat jumps on to man and bites him,poor fellow gets plague--_bus_.[58]
[58] Finale, enough, the end.
"Didn't friends and family-members skeddaddle and bunk when they saw ratafter I told them all that! But I didn't care, I had had plague once,and one cannot get it twice. Not one man in thousand recovers when hehas got it, but I did. Old uneducated fool maternal parent did lots ofthanks-givings and _poojah_ because gods specially attentive to me--butI said 'Go to, old woman. It was written on forehead.'
"And when I returned to work, one day I had an idea--an idea of how topunish Mr. Spensonly for propelling honoured parent head first out ofjob, and idea for striking blow at British prestige. We had our officein private bungalow in those days before new Secretariat was built, andit was unhealthy bungalow in which no one would live because they died.
"Mr. Spensonly didn't care, and he had office on top floor, but bottomfloor was clerks' office who went away at night also. Now it was mypainful duty to go every morning up to his office-room and see that peonhad put fresh ink and everything ready and that the _hamal_ had dustedproperly. So it was not long before I was aware that all the drawerswere locked except the top right-hand drawer, and that was not used asthere was a biggish hole in the front of it where the edge was brokenaway from the above, some miscreant having once forced it open withtool.
"And verily it came to pass that one day, entering my humble abode-room,I saw a plague-rat lying suffering from _in extremis_ and about to giveup ghost. But having had plague I did not trouble about the fleas thatwould leave his body when it grew stiff and cold, in search of food.Instead I let it lie there while my food was being prepared, andregretted that it was not beneath the chair of some enemy of mine whohad not had plague, instead of beneath my own ... that of Mr. Spensonlyfor example!...
"It was Saturday night. I returned to the office that evening, knowingthat Mr. Spensonly was out; and I went to his office-room with idleexcuse to the peon sitting in verandah--and in my pocket was poor oldrat kicking bucket fast.
"Who was to say _I_ put deceasing rat in the Sahib's table-drawer justwhere he would come and sit all day--being in the habit of doing work onSunday the Christian holy day (being a man of no religion or caste)?What do I know of rats and their properties when at death's front door?
"Cannot rat go into a Sahib's drawer as well as into poor man's? If hedid no work on Sunday very likely the fleas would remain until Monday,the rat dying slowly and remaining warm and not in _rigour mortuis_.Anyhow when they began to seek fresh fields and pastures new, being fedup with old rat--or rather not able to get fed up enough, they would bejolly well on the look out, and glad enough to take nibble even at anEnglishman! (He! He!) So I argued, and put good old rat in drawer anddid slopes. On Monday, Mr. Spensonly went early from office, feelingfeverish; and when I called, as in duty bound, to make humble inquirieson Tuesday, he was reported jolly sickish with Plague--and he diedTuesday night. I never heard of any other Sahib dying of Plague inGungapur except one missionary fellow who lived in the native city withnative fellows.
"So they can hang me for share in bomb-outrage and welcome (though Inever threw the bomb nor made it, and only took academic interest inaffair as I told the Judge Sahib)--for I maintain with my dying breaththat it was I who murdered Mr. Spensonly and put tongue in cheeks when_Gungapur Gazette_ wrote column about the unhealthy bungalow in which hewas so foolish as to have his office. When I reflect that by this timeto-morrow I shall be Holy Martyr I rejoice and hope photo will be goodone, and I send this message to all the world--
"'Oh be....'"
* * * * *
Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Gosling-Green, M.P., liked this Pathan gentleman sowell after reading his letter and enclosure. Before long they liked himvery much less--although they did not know it--which sounds cryptic.
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