English fiction -- 19th century; Short stories, English
"Why didn't you get coolies and have him tied up, if you thought he was
mad?" asked Revel.
"Not a safe business, believe me. Wrongful restraint on your own
responsibility of a man nearly your own standing looks ugly. Well,
Stovey went on bullying me and complaining about everything I'd ever
said or done since I came on the Canal, till--he went fast asleep."
"Wha-at?"
"Went off dead asleep, just as if he'd been drugged. I thought the
brute had had a fit at first, but there he was, with his head hanging
a little on one side and his mouth open. I knocked up his bearer and
told him to take the man to bed. We carried him off and shoved him on
his charpoy. He was still asleep, and I didn't think it worth while
to undress him. The fit, whatever it was, had worked itself out, and
he was limp and used up. But as I was going to leave the room, and
went to turn the lamp down, I looked in the glass and saw that he was
watching me between his eyelids. When I spun round he seemed asleep.
'That's your game, is it?' I thought, and I stood over him long enough
to see that he was shamming. Then I cast an eye round the room and
saw his Martini in the corner. We were all _bullumteers_ on the Canal
works. I couldn't find the cartridges, so to make all serene I knocked
the breech-pin out with the cleaning-rod and went to my own room. I
didn't go to sleep for some time. About one o'clock--our rooms were
only divided by a door of sorts, and my bed was close to it--I heard
my friend open a chest of drawers. Then he went for the Martini. Of
course, the breech-block came out with a rattle. Then he went back to
bed again, and I nearly laughed.
"Next morning he was doing the genial, hail-fellow-well-met trick.
Said he was afraid he'd lost his temper overnight, and apologised for
it. About half way through breakfast--he was talking thickly about
everything and anything--he said he'd come to the conclusion that a
beard was a beastly nuisance and made one stuffy. He was going to shave
his. Would I lend him my razors? 'Oh, you're a crafty beast, you are,'
I said to myself. I told him that I was of the other opinion, and
finding my razors nearly worn out had chucked them into the Canal only
the night before. He gave me one look under his eyebrows and went on
with his breakfast. I was in a stew lest the man should cut his throat
with one of the breakfast knives, so I kept one eye on him most of the
time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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