to Peterhoff, a big paper-bag full of the Fumigatory in his coat-tail pockets. He had his chance, and he meant to make the most of it. Mellishe of Madras had been so portentously solemn about his «conference,» that Wonder had arranged for a private tiffin — no A.-D. C.’s, no Wonder, no one but the Viceroy, who said plaintively that he feared being left alone with unmuzzled autocrats like the great Mellishe of Madras.
But his guest did not bore the Viceroy. On the contrary, he amused him. Mellish was nervously anxious to go straight to his Fumigatory, and talked at random until tiffin was over and His Excellency asked him to smoke. The Viceroy was pleased with Mellish because he did not talk «shop.»
As soon as the cheroots were lit, Mellish spoke like a man; beginning with his cholera-theory, reviewing his fifteen years’ «scientific labors,» the machinations of the «Simla Ring,» and the excellence of his Fumigatory, while the Viceroy watched him between half-shut eyes and thought: «Evidently, this is the wrong tiger; but it is an original animal.» Mellish’s hair was standing on end with excitement, and he stammered. He began groping in his coat-tails and, before the Viceroy knew what was about to happen, he had tipped a bagful of his powder into the big silver ash-tray.
«J-j-judge for yourself, Sir,» said Mellish. «Y’ Excellency shall judge for yourself! Absolutely infallible, on my honor.»
He plunged the lighted end of his cigar into the powder, which began to smoke like a volcano, and send up fat, greasy wreaths of copper-colored smoke. In five seconds the room was filled with a most pungent and sickening stench — a reek that took fierce hold of the trap of your windpipe and shut it. The powder then hissed and fizzed, and sent out blue and green sparks, and the smoke rose till you could neither see, nor breathe, nor gasp. Mellish, however, was used to it.
«Nitrate of strontia,» he shouted; «baryta, bone-meal, etcetera! Thousand cubic feet smoke per cubic inch. Not a germ could live — not a germ, Y’ Excellency!»
But His Excellency had fled, and was coughing at the foot of the stairs, while all Peterhoff hummed like a hive. Red Lancers came in, and the Head Chaprassi, who speaks English, came in, and mace-bearers came in, and ladies ran downstairs screaming «fire;» for the smoke was drifting through the house and oozing out of the windows, and bellying along the verandahs, and wreathing and writhing across the gardens. No one could enter the room where Mellish was lecturing on his Fumigatory, till that unspeakable powder had burned itself out.
Then an Aide-de-Camp, who desired the V. C., rushed through the rolling clouds and hauled Mellish into the hall. The Viceroy was prostrate with laughter, and could only waggle his hands feebly at Mellish, who was shaking a fresh bagful of powder at him.
«Glorious! Glorious!» sobbed his Excellency. «Not a germ, as you justly observe, could exist! I can swear it. A magnificent success!»
Then he laughed till the tears came, and Wonder, who had caught the real Mellishe snorting on the Mall, entered and was deeply shocked at the scene. But the Viceroy was delighted, because he saw that Wonder would presently depart. Mellish with the Fumigatory was also pleased, for he felt that he had smashed the Simla Medical «Ring.»
* * *
Few men could tell a story like His Excellency when he took the trouble, and the account of «my dear, good Wonder’s friend with the powder» went the round of Simla, and flippant folk made Wonder unhappy by their remarks.
But His Excellency told the tale once too often — for Wonder. As he meant to do. It was at a Seepee Picnic. Wonder was sitting just behind the Viceroy.
«And I really thought for a moment,» wound up His Excellency, «that my dear, good Wonder had hired an assassin to clear his way to the throne!»
Every one laughed; but there was a delicate subtinkle in the Viceroy’s tone which Wonder understood. He found that his health was giving way; and the Viceroy allowed him to go, and presented him with a flaming «character» for use at Home among big people.
«My fault entirely,» said His Excellency, in after seasons, with a twinkling in his eye. «My inconsistency must always have been distasteful to such a masterly man.»
KIDNAPPED
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken any way you please, is bad,
And strands them in forsaken guts and creeks
No decent soul would think of visiting.
You cannot stop the tide; but now and then,
You may arrest some rash adventurer
Who — h’m — will hardly thank you for your pains.
We are a high-caste and enlightened race, and infant-marriage is very shocking and the consequences are sometimes peculiar; but, nevertheless, the Hindu notion — which is the Continental notion — which is the aboriginal notion — of arranging marriages irrespective of the personal inclinations of the married, is sound. Think for a minute, and you will see that it must be so; unless, of course, you believe in «affinities.» In which case you had better not read this tale. How can a man who has never married; who cannot be trusted to pick up at sight a moderately sound horse; whose head is hot and upset with visions of domestic felicity, go about the choosing of a wife? He cannot see straight or think straight if he tries; and the same disadvantages exist in the case of a girl’s fancies. But when mature, married and discreet people arrange a match between a boy and a girl, they do it sensibly, with a view to the future, and the young couple live happily ever afterwards. As everybody knows.
Properly speaking, Government should establish a Matrimonial Department, efficiently officered, with a Jury of Matrons, a Judge of the Chief Court, a Senior Chaplain, and an Awful Warning, in the shape of a love-match that has gone wrong, chained to the trees in the courtyard. All marriages should be made through the Department, which might be subordinate to the Educational Department, under the same penalty as that attaching to the transfer of land without a stamped document. But Government won’t take suggestions. It pretends that it is too busy. However, I will put my notion on record, and explain the example that illustrates the theory.
Once upon a time there was a good young man — a first- class officer in his own Department — a man with a career before him and, possibly, a K. C. G. E. at the end of it. All his superiors spoke well of him, because he knew how to hold his tongue and his pen at the proper times. There are to-day only eleven men in India who possess this secret; and they have all, with one exception, attained great honor and enormous incomes.
This good young man was quiet and self-contained — too old for his years by far. Which always carries its own punishment. Had a Subaltern, or a Tea-Planter’s Assistant, or anybody who enjoys life and has no care for to- morrow, done what he tried to do not a soul would have cared. But when Peythroppe — the estimable, virtuous, economical, quiet, hard-working, young Peythroppe — fell, there was a flutter through five Departments.
The manner of his fall was in this way. He met a Miss Castries — d’Castries it was originally, but the family dropped the d’ for administrative reasons — and he fell in love with her even more energetically that he worked. Understand clearly that there was not a breath of a word to be said against Miss Castries — not a shadow of a breath. She was good and very lovely — possessed what innocent people at home call a «Spanish» complexion, with thick blue-black hair growing low down on her forehead, into a «widow’s peak,» and big violet eyes under eyebrows as black and as straight as the borders of a Gazette Extraordinary when a big man dies. But — but — but—. Well, she was a
