British -- India -- Fiction; India -- History -- British occupation, 1765-1947 -- Fiction
ANTHONY. 'Can't quite say. A very bad tummy and a blue funk so far. He
asked me at once if it was cholera, and I told him not to be a fool.
That soothed him.
CURTIS. Poor devil! The funk does half the business in a man of that
build.
ANTHONY. (Lighting a cheroot.) I firmly believe the funk will kill him
if he stays down. You know the amount of trouble he's been giving Fewton
for the last three weeks. He's doing his very best to frighten himself
into the grave.
GENERAL CHORUS. Poor little devil! Why doesn't he get away?
ANTHONY. 'Can't. He has his leave all right, but he's so dipped he can't
take it, and I don't think his name on paper would raise four annas.
That's in confidence, though.
MACKESY. All the Station knows it.
ANTHONY. “I suppose I shall have to die here,” he said, squirming all
across the bed. He's quite made up his mind to Kingdom Come. And I know
he has nothing more than a wet-weather tummy if he could only keep a
hand on himself.
BLAYNE. That's bad. That's very bad. Poor little Miggy. Good little
chap, too. I say--
ANTHONY. What do you say?
BLAYNE. Well, look here--anyhow. If it's like that--as you say--I say
fifty.
CURTISS. I say fifty.
MACKESY. I go twenty better.
DONE. Bloated Croesus of the Bar! I say fifty. Jervoise, what do you
say? Hi! Wake up!
JERVOISE. Eh? What's that? What's that?
CURTISS. We want a hundred rupees from you. You're a bachelor drawing a
gigantic income, and there's a man in a hole.
JERVOISE. What man? Any one dead?
BLAYNE. No, but he'll die if you don't give the hundred. Here! Here's a
peg-voucher. You can see what we've signed for, and Anthony's man will
come round to-morrow to collect it. So there will be no trouble.
JERVOISE. (Signing.) One hundred, E. M. J. There you are (feebly). It
isn't one of your jokes, is it?
BLAYNE. No, it really is wanted. Anthony, you were the biggest
poker-winner last week, and you've defrauded the tax-collector too long.
Sign!
ANTHONY. Let's see. Three fifties and a seventy-two twenty-three
twenty-say four hundred and twenty. That'll give him a month clear
at the Hills. Many thanks, you men. I'll send round the chaprassi
to-morrow.
CURTISS. You must engineer his taking the stuff, and of course you
mustn't--
ANTHONY. Of course. It would never do. He'd weep with gratitude over his
evening drink.
BLAYNE. That's just what he would do, damn him. Oh! I say, Anthony, you
pretend to know everything. Have you heard about Gandy?
ANTHONY. No. Divorce Court at last?
BLAYNE. Worse. He's engaged!
ANTHONY. How much? He can't be!
BLAYNE. He is. He's going to be married in a few weeks. Markyn told me
at the Judge's this evening. It's pukka.
ANTHONY. You don't say so? Holy Moses! There'll be a shine in the tents
of Kedar.
CURTISS. 'Regiment cut up rough, think you?
ANTHONY. 'Don't know anything about the Regiment.
MACKESY. It is bigamy, then?
ANTHONY. Maybe. Do you mean to say that you men have forgotten, or is
there more charity in the world than I thought?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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