women, mothers and virgins, shrilled shriek upon mounting shriek, and slapped their thighs as it might have been the roll of musketry. When they tried to draw breath, some half-strangled voice would quack out the word, and the riot began afresh. Last to fall was the city-trained Abdul. He held on to the edge of apoplexy, then collapsed, throwing the umbrella from him.
Mr. Groombride should not be judged too harshly. Exercise and strong emotion under a hot sun, the shock of public ingratitude, for the moment rued his spirit. He furled the umbrella, and with t beat the prostrate Abdul, crying that he had been betrayed. In which posture the Inspector, on horseback, followed by the Governor, suddenly found him.
* * * * *
'That's all very well,' said the Inspector, when he had taken Abdul's dramatically dying depositions on the steamer, 'but you can't hammer a native merely because he laughs at you. I see nothing for it but the law to take its course.'
'You might reduce the charge to--er--tampering with an interpreter,' said the Governor. Mr. Groombride was too far gone to be comforted.
'It's the publicity that I fear,' he wailed. 'Is there no possible means of hushing up the affair? You don't know what a question--a single question in the House means to a man of my position--the ruin of my political career, I assure you.'
'I shouldn't have imagined it,' said the Governor thoughtfully.
'And, though perhaps I ought not to say it, I am not without honour in my own country--or influence. A word in season, as you know, Your Excellency. It might carry an official far.'
The Governor shuddered.
'Yes, that had to come too,' he said to himself. 'Well, look here. If I tell this man of yours to withdraw the charge against you, you can go to Gehenna for aught I care. The only condition I make is that if you write--I suppose that's part of your business about your travels, you don't praise me!'
So far Mr. Groombride has loyally adhered to this understanding.
GALLIO'S SONG All day long to the judgment-seat The crazed Provincials drew-- All day long at their ruler's feet Howled for the blood of the Jew. Insurrection with one accord Banded itself and woke: And Paul was about to open his mouth When Achaia's Deputy spoke 'Whether the God descend from above Or the man ascend upon high, Whether this maker of tents be Jove Or a younger deity-- I will be no judge between your gods And your godless bickerings, Lictor, drive them hence with rods-- I care for none of these things! 'Were it a question of lawful due Or a labourer's hire denied, Reason would I should bear with you And order it well to be tried But this is a question of words and names And I know the strife it brings, I will not pass upon any your claims. I care for none of these things. 'One thing only I see most clear, As I pray you also see. Claudius Caesar hath set me here Rome's Deputy to be. It is Her peace that ye go to break Not mine, nor any king's, But, touching your clamour of 'conscience sake,' I care for none of these things!'
THE HOUSE SURGEON
On an evening after Easter Day, I sat at a table in a homeward bound steamer's smoking-room, where half a dozen of us told ghost stories. As our party broke up a man, playing Patience in the next alcove, said to me: 'I didn't quite catch the end of that last story about the Curse on the family's first-born.'
'It turned out to be drains,' I explained. 'As soon as new ones were put into the house the Curse was lifted, I believe. I never knew the people myself.'
'Ah! I've had my drains up twice; I'm on gravel too.'
'You don't mean to say you've a ghost in your house? Why didn't you join our party?'
'Any more orders, gentlemen, before the bar closes?' the steward interrupted.
'Sit down again, and have one with me,' said the Patience player. 'No, it isn't a ghost. Our trouble is more depression than anything else.'
'How interesting? Then it's nothing any one can see?'
'It's--it's nothing worse than a little depression. And the odd part is that there hasn't been a death in the house since it was built--in 1863. The lawyer said so. That decided me--my good lady, rather and he made me pay an extra thousand for it.'
'How curious. Unusual, too!' I said.
'Yes; ain't it? It was built for three sisters--Moultrie was the name--three old maids. They all lived together; the eldest owned it. I bought it from her lawyer a few years ago, and if I've spent a pound on the place first and last, I must have spent five thousand. Electric light, new servants' wing, garden--all that sort of thing. A man and his family ought to be happy after so much expense, ain't it?' He looked at me through the bottom of his glass.
'Does it affect your family much?'
'My good lady--she's a Greek, by the way--and myself are middle-aged. We can bear up against depression; but it's hard on my little girl. I say little; but she's twenty. We send her visiting to escape it. She almost lived at hotels and hydros, last year, but that isn't pleasant for her. She used to be a canary--a perfect canary--always singing. You ought to hear her. She doesn't sing now. That sort of thing's unwholesome for the young, ain't it?'
'Can't you get rid of the place?' I suggested.
'Not except at a sacrifice, and we are fond of it. Just suits us three. We'd love it if we were allowed.'
'What do you mean by not being allowed?'
'I mean because of the depression. It spoils everything.'
