The Kipling Reader | Page 9

escape that doleful company.
'What are you going to do?' said Martyn, with a yawn. 'Let's have a
swim before dinner.'
'Water's hot,' said Scott. 'I was at the bath to-day.'
'Play you game o' billiards--fifty up.'
'It's a hundred and five in the hall now. Sit still and don't be so
abominably energetic.'
A grunting camel swung up to the porch, his badged and belted rider
fumbling a leather pouch.
'Kubber-kargaz--ki--yektraaa,' the man whined, handing down the
newspaper extra--a slip printed on one side only, and damp from the
press. It was pinned on the green baize-board, between notices of

ponies for sale and fox-terriers missing.
Martyn rose lazily, read it, and whistled. 'It's declared!' he cried. 'One,
two, three--eight districts go under the operation of the Famine Code ek
dum. They've put Jimmy Hawkins in charge.'
'Good business!' said Scott, with the first sign of interest he had shown.
'When in doubt hire a Punjabi. I worked under Jimmy when I first came
out and he belonged to the Punjab. He has more bundobust than most
men.'
'Jimmy's a Jubilee Knight now,' said Martyn. 'He was a good chap,
even though he is a thrice-born civilian and went to the Benighted
Presidency. What unholy names these Madras districts rejoice in--all
ungas or rungas or pillays or polliums.'
A dog-cart drove up, and a man entered, mopping his head. He was
editor of the one daily paper at the capital of a province of twenty-five
million natives and a few hundred white men, and as his staff was
limited to himself and one assistant, his office hours ran variously from
ten to twenty a day.
'Hi, Raines; you're supposed to know everything,' said Martyn,
stopping him. 'How's this Madras "scarcity" going to turn out?'
'No one knows as yet. There's a message as long as your arm coming in
on the telephone. I've left my cub to fill it out. Madras has owned she
can't manage it alone, and Jimmy seems to have a free hand in getting
all the men he needs. Arbuthnot's warned to hold himself in readiness.'
'"Badger" Arbuthnot?'
'The Peshawur chap. Yes, and the Pi wires that Ellis and Clay have
been moved from the North-West already, and they've taken half a
dozen Bombay men, too. It's pukka famine, by the looks of it.'
'They're nearer the scene of action than we are; but if it comes to
indenting on the Punjab this early, there's more in this than meets the

eye,' said Martyn.
'Here to-day and gone to-morrow. Didn't come to stay for ever,' said
Scott, dropping one of Marryat's novels, and rising to his feet. 'Martyn,
your sister's waiting for you.'
A rough gray horse was backing and shifting at the edge of the
verandah, where the light of a kerosene-lamp fell on a brown calico
habit and a white face under a gray felt hat.
'Right, O,' said Martyn. 'I'm ready. Better come and dine with us if
you've nothing to do, Scott. William, is there any dinner in the house?'
'I'll go home first and see,' was the rider's answer. 'You can drive him
over--at eight, remember.'
Scott moved leisurely to his room, and changed into the evening-dress
of the season and the country: spotless white linen from head to foot,
with a broad silk cummerbund. Dinner at the Martyns' was a decided
improvement on the goat-mutton, twiney-tough fowl, and tinned
entrees of the Club. But it was a great pity Martyn could not afford to
send his sister to the Hills for the hot weather. As an Acting District
Superintendent of Police, Martyn drew the magnificent pay of six
hundred depreciated silver rupees a month, and his little four-roomed
bungalow said just as much. There were the usual blue-and-white
striped jail-made rugs on the uneven floor; the usual glass studded
Amritsar phulkaris draped to nails driven into the flaking whitewash of
the walls; the usual half-dozen chairs that did not match, picked up at
sales of dead men's effects; and the usual streaks of black grease where
the leather punka-thong ran through the wall. It was as though
everything had been unpacked the night before to be repacked next
morning. Not a door in the house was true on its hinges. The little
windows, fifteen feet up, were darkened with wasp-nests, and lizards
hunted flies between the beams of the wood-ceiled roof. But all this
was part of Scott's life. Thus did people live who had such an income;
and in a land where each man's pay, age, and position are printed in a
book, that all may read, it is hardly worth while to play at pretences in
word or deed. Scott counted eight years' service in the Irrigation

Department, and drew eight hundred rupees a month, on the
understanding that if