The Story of the Gadsby | Page 9

Curtiss would have to import his nymphs by train. Mrs.
Cockley's the only woman in the Station. She won't leave Cockley, and
he's doing his best to get her to go.
CURTISS. Good, indeed! Here's Mrs. Cockley's health. To the only
wife in the Station and a damned brave woman!
OMNES. (Drinking.) A damned brave woman
BLAVNE. I suppose Gandy will bring his wife here at the end of the
cold weather. They are going to be married almost immediately, I
believe.
CURTISS. Gandy may thank his luck that the Pink Hussars are all
detachment and no headquarters this hot weather, or he'd be torn from
the arms of his love as sure as death. Have you ever noticed the
thorough-minded way British Cavalry take to cholera? It's because they
are so expensive. If the Pinks had stood fast here, they would have been
out in camp a. month ago. Yes, I should decidedly like to be Gandy.
MACKESY. He'll go Home after he's married, and send in his
papers-see if he doesn't.
BLAYNE. Why shouldn't he? Hasn't he money? Would any one of us
be here if we weren't paupers?
DONE. Poor old pauper! What has become of the six hundred you

rooked from our table last month?
BLAYNE. It took unto itself wings. I think an enterprising tradesman
got some of it, and a shroff gobbled the rest-or else I spent it.
CURTISS. Gandy never had dealings with a shroff in his life.
DONE. Virtuous Gandy! If I had three thousand a month, paid from
England, I don't think I'd deal with a shroff either.
MACKESY. (Yawning.) Oh, it's a sweet life! I wonder whether
matrimony would make it sweeter.
CURTISS. Ask Cockley-with his wife dying by inches!
BLAYNE. Go home and get a fool of a girl to come out to-what is it
Thackeray says?-"the splendid palace of an Indian pro-consul."
DOONE. Which reminds me. My quarters leak like a sieve. I had fever
last night from sleeping in a swamp. And the worst of it is, one can't do
anything to a roof till the Rains are over.
CURTISS. What's wrong with you? You haven't eighty rotting
Tommies to take into a running stream.
DONE. No: but I'm mixed boils and bad language. I'm a regular Job all
over my body. It's sheer poverty of blood, and I don't see any chance of
getting richer-either way.
BLAYNE. Can't you take leave? DONE. That's the pull you Army men
have over us. Ten days are nothing in your sight. I'm so important that
Government can't find a substitute if I go away. Ye-es, I'd like to be
Gandy, whoever his wife may be.
CURTISS. You've passed the turn of life that Mackesy was speaking
of.
DONE. Indeed I have, but I never yet had the brutality to ask a woman
to share my life out here.

BLAvNE. On my soul I believe you're right. I'm thinking of Mrs.
Cockley. The woman's an absolute wreck.
DONE. Exactly. Because she stays down here. The only way to keep
her fit would be to send her to the Hills for eight months-and the same
with any woman. I fancy I see myself taking a wife on those terms.
MACKESY. With the rupee at one and sixpence. The little Doones
would be little Debra Doones, with a fine Mussoorie chi-chi anent to
bring home for the holidays.
CURTISS. And a pair of be-ewtiful sambhur-horns for Done to wear,
free of expense, presented by-DONE. Yes, it's an enchanting prospect.
By the way, the rupee hasn't done falling yet. The time will come when
we shall think ourselves lucky if we only lose half our pay.
CURTISS. Surely a third's loss enough. Who gains by the arrangement?
That's what I want to know.
BLAYNE. The Silver Question! I'm going to bed if you begin
squabbling Thank Goodness, here's Anthony-looking like a ghost.
Enter ANTHONY, Indian Medical Staff, very white and tired.
ANTHONY. 'Evening, Blayne. It's raining in sheets. Whiskey peg lao,
khitmatgar. The roads are something ghastly.
CURTISS. How's Mingle?
ANTHONY. Very bad, and more frightened. I handed him over to
Few-ton. Mingle might just as well have called him in the first place,
instead of bothering me.
BLAYNE. He's a nervous little chap. What has he got, this time?
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