"It's my professional opinion," replied the Jinrikshaw, "that the Sahib has a bad attack of melancholia. He hasn't laughed for six months. If we could only get him to laugh, I think he'd recover." "Then it was not in a jocular spirit that he ruined my teeth with those nuts?" demanded the Viceroy, taking a small mirror out of his pocket and gazing ruefully on his ruined smile. "No, your most Excellent Excellency," replied the Jinrikshaw. "The fact that he ate five of them himself shows that it was an error, not a jest." It was thus that Findlayson got his vacation, and even to this day the Kaskalooloo folk are laughing over his error more heartily than they ever laughed over a joke. A month after leaving his post Findlayson reached London, where he was placed under the care of the most famous physicians. They did everything they could to make him laugh, without success. _Punch_ was furnished, and he read it through day after day, and burst into hysterical weeping. They took him to the theatres, and he never even smiled. They secured a front seat in the House of Commons for him during important debates, and he merely sobbed. They took him to the Army and Navy Stores, and he shivered with fear. Even Beerbohm Tree as Lady Macbeth, or whatever rôle it was he was playing at the time, failed to coax the old-time dimple to his cheek. His friends began to whisper among themselves that "old Findlayson was done for," when Berkeley Hauksbee, who had been with him in the Soudan, suggested a voyage to the United States. "He'll see enough there to laugh at, or I'm an unshod, unbroken, saw-backed, shark-eating skate!" he asserted, and as a last resource Findlayson was packed, bag and baggage, aboard the liner _New York_. The first three days out Findlayson was dead to the world. He lay like a fallen log in the primeval forest. Stewards were of no avail. Even the repeated calls of the doctor, whose apprehensions were aroused, could not restore him to life. [Illustration: THEY GAVE HIM _PUNCH_] "They'll be sewin' him up in a jute bag and droppin' him overboard if he doesn't come to by to-morrow," observed the Water Bottle to the Soap Dish, with a sympathetic glance at the prostrate Findlayson. "He'll be seasicker than ever if they do," returned the Soap Dish. "It's a long swim from here to Sandy Hook." But Findlayson came to in time to avert the catastrophe, and took several turns up and down the deck. He played horse-billiards with an English curate, but showed no sign of interest or amusement even at the curious aspect of the ladies who lay inert in the steamer chairs ranged along the deck. "I'm afraid it's hopeless," said Peroo, his valet, shaking his head sadly. "Unless I take him in hand myself." And Peroo was seized with an idea. "I'll do it!" he cried. He approached Findlayson. "The Sahib will not laugh," he said. "He will not smile even. He has not snickered all day. Take these, then. They're straight opium, but there's fun in them."