The Story of the Gadsby | Page 8

out
up above.
MACKESY. (Barrister-at-Law.) Huh! Women will give out anything.
What does accused say?
BLAYNE. Markyn told me that he congratulated him warily-one hand
held out, t'other ready to guard. Gandy turned pink and said it was so.
CURTISS. Poor old Caddy! They all do it. Who's she? Let's hear the
details.
BLAYNE. She's a girl-daughter of a Colonel Somebody.
DOONE. Simla's stiff with Colonels' daughters. Be more explicit.
BLAYNE. Wait a shake. What was her name? Thresomething. Three-
CURTISS. Stars, perhaps. Caddy knows that brand.
BLAYNE. Threegan-Minnie Threegan.
MACKESY. Threegan Isn't she a little bit of a girl with red hair?
BLAYNE. 'Bout that-from what from what Markyn said.
MACKESY. Then I've met her. She was at Lucknow last season.
'Owned a permanently juvenile Mamma, and danced damnably. I say,
Jervoise, you knew the Threegans, didn't you?
JERVOISE. (Civilian of twenty-five years' service, waking up from his
doze.) Eh? What's that? Knew who? How? I thought I was at Home,
confound you!

MACKESY. The Threegan girl's engaged, so Blayne says.
JERVOISE. (Slowly.) Engaged-en-gaged! Bless my soul! I'm getting
an old man! Little Minnie Threegan engaged. It was only the other day
I went home with them in the Surat-no, the Massilia- and she was
crawling about on her hands and knees among the ayahs. 'Used to call
me the "Tick Tack Sakib" because I showed her my watch. And that
was in Sixty-Seven-no, Seventy. Good God, how time flies! I'm an old
man. I remember when Threegan married Miss Derwent-daughter of
old Hooky Derwent-but that was before your time. And so the little
baby's engaged to have a little baby of her own! Who's the other fool?
MACKESY. Gadsby of the Pink Hussars.
JERVOISE. 'Never met him. Threegan lived in debt, married in debt,
and 'll die in debt. 'Must be glad to get the girl off his hands.
BLAYNE. Caddy has money-lucky devil. Place at Home, too.
DOONE. He comes of first-class stock. 'Can't quite understand his
being caught by a Colonel's daughter, and (looking cautiously round
room.) Black Infantry at that! No offence to you, Blayne.
BLAYNE. (Stiffly.) Not much, thaanks.
CURTISS. (Quoting motto of Irregular Moguls.) "We are what we are,"
eh, old man? But Gandy was such a superior animal as a rule. Why
didn't he go Home and pick his wife there?
MACKESY. They are all alike when they come to the turn into the
straight. About thirty a man begins to get sick of living alone.
CURTISS. And of the eternal muttony-chop in the morning.
DOONE. It's a dead goat as a rule, but go on, Mackesy.
MACKESY. If a man's once taken that way nothing will hold him, Do
you remember Benoit of your service, Doone? They transferred him to
Tharanda when his time came, and he married a platelayer's daughter,

or something of that kind. She was the only female about the place.
DONE. Yes, poor brute. That smashed Benoit's chances of promotion
altogether. Mrs. Benoit used to ask "Was you gem' to the dance this
evenin'?"
CURTISS. Hang it all! Gandy hasn't married beneath him. There's no
tarbrush in the family, I suppose.
JERVOISE. Tar-brush! Not an anna. You young fellows talk as though
the man was doing the girl an honor in marrying her. You're all too
conceited-nothing's good enough for you.
BLAYNE. Not even an empty Club, a dam' bad dinner at the Judge's,
and a Station as sickly as a hospital. You're quite right. We're a set of
Sybarites.
DOONE. Luxurious dogs, wallowing in-
CURTISS. Prickly heat between the shoulders. I'm covered with it.
Let's hope Beora will be cooler.
BLAYNE. Whew! Are you ordered into camp, too? I thought the
Gunners had a clean sheet.
CURTISS. No, worse luck. Two cases yesterday-one died-and if we
have a third, out we go. Is there any shooting at Beora, Doone?
DOONE. The country's under water, except the patch by the Grand
Trunk Road. I was there yesterday, looking at a bund, and came across
four poor devils in their last stage. It's rather bad from here to Kuchara.
CURTISS. Then we're pretty certain to have a heavy go of it. Heigho! I
shouldn't mind changing places with Gaddy for a while. 'Sport with
Amaryllis in the shade of the Town Hall, and all that. Oh, why doesn't
somebody come and marry me, instead of letting me go into
cholera-camp?
MACKESY. Ask the Committee.

CURTISS. You ruffian! You'll stand me another peg for that. Blayne,
what will you take? Mackesy is fine on moral grounds. Done, have you
any preference?
DONE. Small glass Kummel, please. Excellent carminative, these days.
Anthony told me so.
MACKESY. (Signing voucher for four drinks.) Most unfair
punishment. I only thought of Curtiss as Actaeon being chivied round
the billiard tables by the nymphs of Diana.
BLAYNE.