Condensed Novels: New Burlesques Part 10

"Oh! You have his address?" I said.

"Certainly! What did you expect I was behind the curtain with the Viceroy for?" she said, opening her violet eyes innocently. "It's Bungloore--First Turning to the Right--At the End of the pa.s.sage."

Bungloore--near Ghouli Pa.s.s--in the Jungle! I knew the place, a spot of dank pestilence and mystery. "You never could have gone there," I said.

"You do not know WHAT I could do for a FRIEND," she said sweetly, veiling her eyes in demure significance.

"Oh, come off the roof!" I said bluntly.

She could be obedient when it was necessary. She came off. Not without her revenge. "Try to remember you are not at school with the Stalkies," she said, and turned away.

I went to Bungloore,--not on her account, but my own. If you don't know India, you won't know Bungloore. It's all that and more. An egg dropped by a vulture, sat upon and addled by the Department. But I knew the house and walked boldly in. A lion walked out of one door as I came in at another. We did this two or three times--and found it amusing. A large cobra in the hall rose up, bowed as I pa.s.sed, and respectfully removed his hood.

I found the poor old boy at the end of the pa.s.sage. It might have been the pa.s.sage between Calais and Dover,--he looked so green, so limp and dejected. I affected not to notice it, and threw myself in a chair.

He gazed at me for a moment and then said, "Did you hear what the chair was saying?"

It was an ordinary bamboo armchair, and had creaked after the usual fas.h.i.+on of bamboo chairs. I said so.

He cast his eyes to the ceiling. "He calls it 'creaking,'" he murmured. "No matter," he continued aloud, "its remark was not of a complimentary nature. It's very difficult to get really polite furniture."

The man was evidently stark, staring mad. I still affected not to observe it, and asked him if that was why he left Simla.

"There were Simla reasons, certainly," he replied. "But you think I came here for solitude! SOLITUDE!" he repeated, with a laugh. "Why, I hold daily conversations with any blessed thing in this house, from the veranda to the chimney-stack, with any stick of furniture, from the footstool to the towel-horse. I get more out of it than the gabble at the Club. You look surprised. Listen! I took this thing up in my leisure hours in the Department. I had read much about the conversation of animals. I argued that if animals conversed, why shouldn't inanimate things communicate with each other? You cannot prove that animals don't converse--neither can you prove that inanimate objects DO NOT. See?"

I was thunderstruck with the force of his logic.

"Of course," he continued, "there are degrees of intelligence, and that makes it difficult. For instance, a mahogany table would not talk like a rush-bottomed kitchen chair." He stopped suddenly, listened, and replied, "I really couldn't say."

"I didn't speak," I said.

"I know YOU didn't. But your chair asked me 'how long that fool was going to stay.' I replied as you heard. Pray don't move--I intend to change that chair for one more accustomed to polite society. To continue: I perfected myself in the language, and it was awfully jolly at first. Whenever I went by train, I heard not only all the engines said, but what every blessed carriage thought, that joined in the conversation. If you chaps only knew what rot those whistles can get off! And as for the brakes, they can beat any mule driver in cursing.

Then, after a time, it got rather monotonous, and I took a short sea trip for my health. But, by Jove, every blessed inch of the whole s.h.i.+p--from the screw to the bowsprit--had something to say, and the bad language used by the garboard strake when the s.h.i.+p rolled was something too awful! You don't happen to know what the garboard strake is, do you?"

"No," I replied.

"No more do I. That's the dreadful thing about it. You've got to listen to chaps that you don't know. Why, coming home on my bicycle the other day there was an awful row between some infernal 'sprocket'

and the 'ball bearings' of the machine, and I never knew before there were such things in the whole concern."

I thought I had got at his secret, and said carelessly: "Then I suppose this was the reason why you broke off your engagement with Miss Millikens?"

"Not at all," he said coolly. "Nothing to do with it. That is quite another affair. It's a very queer story; would you like to hear it?"

"By all means." I took out my notebook.

"You remember that night of the Amateur Theatricals, got up by the White Hussars, when the lights suddenly went out all over the house?"

"Yes," I replied, "I heard about it."

"Well, I had gone down there that evening with the determination of proposing to Mary Millikens the first chance that offered. She sat just in front of me, her sister Jane next, and her mother, smart Widow Millikens,--who was a bit larky on her own account, you remember,--the next on the bench. When the lights went out and the panic and t.i.ttering began, I saw my chance! I leaned forward, and in a voice that would just reach Mary's ear I said, 'I have long wished to tell you how my life is bound up with you, dear, and I never, never can be happy without you'--when just then there was a mighty big shove down my bench from the fellows beyond me, who were trying to get out. But I held on like grim death, and struggled back again into position, and went on: 'You'll forgive my taking a chance like this, but I felt I could no longer conceal my love for you,' when I'm blest if there wasn't another shove, and though I'd got hold of her little hand and had a kind of squeeze in return, I was drifted away again and had to fight my way back. But I managed to finish, and said, 'If the devotion of a lifetime will atone for this hurried avowal of my love for you, let me hope for a response,' and just then the infernal lights were turned on, and there I was holding the widow's hand and she nestling on my shoulder, and the two girls in hysterics on the other side. You see, I never knew that they were shoved down on their bench every time, just as I was, and of course when I got back to where I was I'd just skipped one of them each time! Yes, sir! I had made that proposal in THREE sections--a part to each girl, winding up with the mother! No explanation was possible, and I left Simla next day. Naturally, it wasn't a thing they could talk about, either!"

"Then you think Mrs. Awksby had nothing to do with it?" I said.

"Nothing--absolutely nothing. By the way, if you see that lady, you might tell her that I have possession of that brocade easy-chair which used to stand in the corner of her boudoir. You remember it,--faded white and yellow, with one of the casters off and a little frayed at the back, but rather soft-spoken and amiable? But of course you don't understand THAT. I bought it after she moved into her new bungalow."

"But why should I tell her that?" I asked in wonder.

"Nothing--except that I find it very amusing with its reminiscences of the company she used to entertain, and her confidences generally.

Good-by--take care of the lion in the hall. He always couches on the left for a spring. Ta-ta!"

I hurried away. When I returned to Simla I told Mrs. Awksby of my discoveries, and spoke of the armchair.

I fancied she colored slightly, but quickly recovered.

"Dear old Sparkley," she said sweetly; "he WAS a champion liar!"

II.

A PRIVATE'S HONOR

I had not seen Mulledwiney for several days. Knowing the man--this looked bad. So I dropped in on the Colonel. I found him in deep thought. This looked bad, too, for old c.o.c.key Wax--as he was known to everybody in the Hill districts but himself--wasn't given to thinking.

I guessed the cause and told him so.

"Yes," he said wearily, "you are right! It's the old story.

Mulledwiney, Bleareyed, and Otherwise are at it again,--drink followed by Clink. Even now two corporals and a private are sitting on Mulledwiney's head to keep him quiet, and Bleareyed is chained to an elephant."

"Perhaps," I suggested, "you are unnecessarily severe."

"Do you really think so? Thank you so much! I am always glad to have a civilian's opinion on military matters--and vice versa--it broadens one so! And yet--am I severe? I am willing, for instance, to overlook their raid upon a native village, and the ransom they demanded for a native inspector! I have overlooked their taking the horses out of my carriage for their own use. I am content also to believe that my fowls meekly succ.u.mb to jungle fever and cholera. But there are some things I cannot ignore. The carrying off of the great G.o.d Vishnu from the Sacred Shrine at Ducidbad by The Three for the sake of the priceless opals in its eyes"--

"But I never heard of THAT," I interrupted eagerly. "Tell me."

"Ah!" said the Colonel playfully, "that--as you so often and so amusingly say--is 'Another Story'! Yet I would have overlooked the theft of the opals if they had not subst.i.tuted two of the Queen's regimental b.u.t.tons for the eyes of the G.o.d. This, while it did not deceive the ignorant priests, had a deep political and racial significance. You are aware, of course, that the great mutiny was occasioned by the issue of cartridges to the native troops greased with hog's fat--forbidden by their religion."

"But these three men could themselves alone quell a mutiny," I replied.

The Colonel grasped my hand warmly. "Thank you. So they could. I never thought of that." He looked relieved. For all that, he presently pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead and nervously chewed his cheroot.

"There is something else," I said.

"You are right. There is. It is a secret. Promise me it shall go no further--than the Press? Nay, swear that you will KEEP it for the Press!"

"I promise."

"Thank you SO much. It is a matter of my own and Mulledwiney's. The fact is, we have had a PERSONAL difficulty." He paused, glanced around him, and continued in a low, agitated voice: "Yesterday I came upon him as he was sitting leaning against the barrack wall. In a spirit of playfulness--mere playfulness, I a.s.sure you, sir--I poked him lightly in the shoulder with my stick, saying 'Boo!' He turned--and I shall never forget the look he gave me."

"Good heavens!" I gasped, "you touched--absolutely TOUCHED--Mulledwiney?"