Rujub, the Juggler Part 10

"And you shall give me a lesson, Doctor," Captain Doolan, who had also retired, said.

"It would be time thrown away by both of us, Doolan. You would never make a pool player if you were to practice all your life. It is not the eye that is wrong, but the temperament. You can make a very good shot now and then, but you are too harum scarum and slap dash altogether.

The art of playing pool is the art of placing yourself; while, when you strike, you have not the faintest idea where your ball is going to, and you are just as likely to run in yourself as you are to pot your adversary. I should abjure it if I were you, Doolan; it is too expensive a luxury for you to indulge in."

"You are right there, Doctor; only what is a man to do when fellows say, 'We want you to make up a pool, Doolan'?"

"I should say the reply would be quite simple. I should answer, 'I am ready enough to play if any of you are ready to pay my losses and take my winnings; I am tired of being as good as an annuity to you all,'

for that is what you have been for the last ten years. Why, it would be cheaper for you to send home to England for skittles, and get a ground up here."

"But I don't play so very badly, Doctor."

"If you play badly enough always to lose, it doesn't matter as to the precise degree of badness," the Doctor retorted. "It is not surprising.

When you came out here, fourteen or fifteen years ago, boys did not take to playing billiards, but they do now. Look at that little villain, Richards. He has just cleared the table, and done it with all the coolness of a professional marker. The young scoundrel ought to have been in bed two hours ago, for I hear that tat of his is really a good one. Not that it will make any difference to him. That sort of boy would play billiards till the first bugle sounds in the morning, and have a wash and turn out as fresh as paint, but it won't last, Doolan, not in this climate; his cheeks will have fallen in and he will have crow's feet at the corners of his eyes before another year has gone over. I like that other boy, Wilson, better. Of course he is a cub as yet, but I should say there is good in him. Just at present I can see he is beginning to fancy himself in love with Miss Hannay. That will do him good; it is always an advantage to a lad like that to have a good honest liking for a nice girl. Of course it comes to nothing, and for a time he imagines himself the most unhappy of mortals, but it does him good for all that; fellows are far less likely to get into mischief and go to the bad after an affair of that sort. It gives him a high ideal, and if he is worth anything he will try to make himself worthy of her, and the good it does him will continue even after the charm is broken."

"What a fellow you are, Doctor," Captain Doolan said, looking down upon his companion, "talking away like that in the middle of this racket, which would be enough to bother Saint Patrick himself!"

"Well, come along downstairs, Doolan; we will have a final peg and then be off; I expect Bathurst is beginning to fidget before now."

"It will do him good," Captain Doolan said disdainfully. "I have no patience with a man who is forever working himself to death, riding about the country as if Old Nick were behind him, and never giving himself a minute for diversion of any kind. Faith, I would rather throw myself down a well and have done with it, than work ten times as hard as a black n.i.g.g.e.r."

"Well, I don't think, Doolan," the Doctor said dryly, "you are ever likely to be driven to suicide by any such cause."

"You are right there, Doctor," the other said contentedly. "No man can throw it in my teeth that I ever worked when I had no occasion to work.

If there were a campaign, I expect I could do my share with the best of them, but in quiet times I just do what I have to do, and if anyone has an anxiety to take my place in the rota for duty, he is as welcome to it as the flowers of May. I had my share of it when I was a subaltern; there is no better fellow living than the Major, but when he was Captain of my company he used to keep me on the run by the hour together, till I wished myself back in Connaught, and anyone who liked it might have had the whole of India for anything I cared; he was one of the most uneasy creatures I ever came across."

"The Major is a good officer, Doolan, and you were as lazy a youngster, and as hard a bargain, as the Company ever got. You ought to thank your stars that you had the good luck in having a Captain who knew his business, and made you learn yours. Why, if you had had a man like Rintoul as your Captain, you would never have been worth your salt."

"You are not complimentary, Doctor; but then n.o.body looks for compliments from you."

"I can pay compliments if I have a chance," the Doctor retorted, "but it is very seldom I get one of doing so--at least, without lying. Well, Bathurst, are you ready to turn in?"

"Quite ready, Doctor; that is one of the advantages of not caring for races; the merits and demerits of the horses that run tomorrow do not in the slightest degree affect me, and even the news that all the favorites had gone wrong would not deprive me of an hour's sleep."

"I think it a good thing to take an interest in racing, Bathurst. Take men as a whole: out here they work hard--some of them work tremendously hard--and unless they get some change to their thoughts, some sort of recreation, nineteen out of twenty will break down sooner or later. If they don't they become mere machines. Every man ought to have some sort of hobby; he need not ride it to death, but he wants to take some sort of interest in it. I don't care whether he takes to pig sticking, or racing, or shooting, or whether he goes in for what I may call the milder kinds of relaxation, such as dining out, billiards, whist, or even general philandering. Anything is better than nothing--anything that will take his mind off his work. As far as I can see, you don't do anything."

"Therefore I shall either break down or become a machine, Doctor?"

"One or the other certainly, Bathurst. You may smile, but I mean what I say. I have seen other young fellows just as full of work and enthusiasm as you are, but I have never seen an exception to the rule, unless, of course, they took up something so as to give their minds a rest."

"The Doctor has just been scolding me because I am not fond enough of work," Captain Doolan laughed.

"You are differently placed, Doolan," the Doctor said. "You have got plenty of enthusiasm in your nature--most Irishmen have--but you have had nothing to stir it. Life in a native regiment in India is an easy one. Your duties are over in two or three hours out of the twenty-four, whereas the work of a civilian in a large district literally never ends, unless he puts a resolute stop to it. What with seeing people from morning until night, and riding about and listening to complaints, every hour of the day is occupied, and then at night there are reports to write and doc.u.ments of all sorts to go through. It is a great pity that there cannot be a better division of work, though I own I don't see how it is to be managed."

By this time they were walking towards the lines.

"I should not mind taking a share of the civil work at the station,"

Captain Doolan said, "if they would make our pay a little more like that of the civilians."

"There is something in that, Doolan," the Doctor agreed; "it is just as hard work having nothing to do as it is having too much; and I have always been of opinion that the tremendous disproportion between the pay of a military man and of a civilian of the same age is simply monstrous.

Well, goodnight, Doolan; I hope you will tell Mrs. Doolan that the credit is entirely due to me that you are home at the reasonable hour of one o'clock, instead of dropping in just in time to change for parade."

"A good fellow," the Doctor said, as he walked on with Bathurst; "he would never set the Thames on fire; but he is an honest, kindly fellow.

He would make a capital officer if he were on service. His marriage has been an excellent thing for him. He had nothing to do before but to pa.s.s away his time in the club or mess house, and drink more than was good for him. But he has pulled himself round altogether since he married.

His wife is a bright, clever little woman, and knows how to make the house happy for him; if he had married a lackadaisical sort of a woman, the betting is he would have gone to the bad altogether."

"I only met him once or twice before," Bathurst said. "You see I am not here very often, and when I am it is only on business, so I know a very few people here except those I have to deal with, and by the time I have got through my business I am generally so thoroughly out of temper with the pig headed stupidity and obstinacy of people in general, that I get into my buggy and drive straight away."

"I fancy you irritate them as much as they irritate you, Bathurst. Well, here we are; now we will have a quiet cheroot and a peg, to quiet our nerves after all that din, before we turn in. Let us get off our coats and collars, and make ourselves comfortable; it is a proof of the b.e.s.t.i.a.l stupidity of mankind that they should wear such abominations as dress clothes in a climate like this. Here, boy, light the candles and bring two sodas and brandies."

"Well, Bathurst," he went on, when they had made themselves comfortable in two lounging chairs, "what do you thing of Miss Hannay?"

"I was prepared to admire her, Doctor, from what you said; it is not very often that you overpraise things; but she is a charming girl, very pretty and bright, frank and natural."

"She is all that," the Doctor said. "We were four months on the voyage out, and I saw enough of her in that time to know her pretty thoroughly."

"What puzzles me about her," Bathurst said, "is that I seemed to know her face. Where I saw her, and under what circ.u.mstances, I have been puzzling myself half the evening to recall, but I have the strongest conviction that I have met her."

"You are dreaming, man. You have been out here eight years; she was a child of ten when you left England! You certainly have not seen her, and as I know pretty well every woman who has been in this station for the last five or six years, I can answer for it that you have not seen anyone in the slightest degree resembling her."

"That is what I have been saying to myself, Doctor, but that does not in the slightest degree shake my conviction about it."

"Then you must have dreamt it," the Doctor said decidedly. "Some fool of a poet has said, 'Visions of love cast their shadows before,' or something of that sort, which of course is a lie; still, that is the only way that I can account for it."

Bathurst smiled faintly. "I don't think the quotation is quite right, Doctor; anyhow, I am convinced that the impression is far too vivid to have been the result of a dream."

"By the way, Bathurst," the Doctor said, suddenly changing his conversation, "what do you think of this talk we hear about chupaties being sent round among the native troops, and the talk about greased cartridges. You see more of the natives than anyone I know; do you think there is anything brewing in the air?"

"If there is, Doctor, I am certain it is not known to the natives in general. I see no change whatever in their manner, and I am sure I know them well enough to notice any change if it existed. I know nothing about the Sepoys, but Garnet tells me that the Company at Deennugghur give him nothing to complain of, though they don't obey orders as smartly as usual, and they have a. sullen air as they go about their work."

"I don't like it, Bathurst. I do not understand what the chupaties mean, but I know that there is a sort of tradition that the sending of them round has always preceded trouble. The Sepoys have no reason for discontent, but there has been no active service lately, and idleness is always bad for men. I can't believe there is any widespread dissatisfaction among them, but there is no doubt whatever that if there is, and it breaks out, the position will be a very serious one. There are not half enough white troops in India, and the Sepoys may well think that they are masters of the situation. It would be a terrible time for everyone in India if they did take it into their heads to rise."

"I can't believe they would be mad enough to do that, Doctor; they have everything to lose by it, and nothing to gain, that is, individually; and we should be sure to win in the long run, even if we had to conquer back India foot by foot."

"That is all very well, Bathurst; we may know that we could do it, but they don't know it. They are ignorant altogether of the forces we could put into the field were there a necessity to make the effort. They naturally suppose that we can have but a few soldiers, for in all the battles we have fought there have always been two or three Sepoy regiments to one English. Besides, they consider themselves fully a match for us. They have fought by us side by side in every battlefield in India, and have done as well as we have. I don't see what they should rise for. I don't even see whose interest it is to bring a rising about, but I do know that if they rise we shall have a terrible time of it.

Now I think we may as well turn in. You won't take another peg? Well, I shall see you in the morning. I shall be at the hospital by half past six, and shall be in at half past eight to breakfast. You have only got to shout for my man, and tell him whether you will have tea, coffee, or chocolate, any time you wake."

"I shall be about by six, Doctor; five is my general hour, but as it is past one now I dare say I shall be able to sleep on for an hour later, especially as there is nothing to do."

"You can go round the hospital with me, if you like," the Doctor said, "if you will promise not to make a dozen suggestions for the improvement of things in general."

Isobel Hannay came down to breakfast in high spirits upon the morning of the races. The dinner had gone off excellently. The dinner table, with its softly shaded lamps, and the Doctor's arrangements of the flowers, had been, she thought, perfection, and everything had pa.s.sed off without a hitch. Her duties as a hostess had been much lighter than she had antic.i.p.ated. Mrs. Hunter was a very pleasant, motherly woman, and the girls, who had only come out from England four months before, were fresh and unaffected, and the other people had all been pleasant and chatty.

Altogether, she felt that her first dinner party had been a great success.

She was looking forward now with pleasant antic.i.p.ation to the day. She had seen but little of the natives so far, and she was now to see them at their best. Then she had never been present at a race, and everything would be new and exciting.

"Well, uncle, what time did you get in?" she asked, as she stepped out into the veranda to meet him on his return from early parade. "It was too bad of you and Mr. Hunter running off instead of waiting to chat things over."