Plain Tales from the Hills, стр. 18

«Very well,» said the doctor, «you’ll break down because you are over-engined for your beam.» McGoggin was a little chap.

One day, the collapse came — as dramatically as if it had been meant to embellish a Tract.

It was just before the Rains. We were sitting in the verandah in the dead, hot, close air, gasping and praying that the black-blue clouds would let down and bring the cool. Very, very far away, there was a faint whisper, which was the roar of the Rains breaking over the river. One of the men heard it, got out of his chair, listened, and said, naturally enough — «Thank God!»

Then the Blastoderm turned in his place and said — «Why? I assure you it’s only the result of perfectly natural causes — atmospheric phenomena of the simplest kind. Why you should, therefore, return thanks to a Being who never did exist — who is only a figment»

«Blastoderm,» grunted the man in the next chair, «dry up, and throw me over the Pioneer. We know all about your figments.» The Blastoderm reached out to the table, took up one paper, and jumped as if something had stung him. Then he handed the paper over.

«As I was saying,» he went on slowly and with an effort «due to perfectly natural causes — perfectly natural causes. I mean»

«Hi! Blastoderm, you’ve given me the Calcutta Mercantile Advertiser.»

The dust got up in little whorls, while the treetops rocked and the kites whistled. But no one was looking at the coming of the Rains. We were all staring at the Blastoderm, who had risen from his chair and was fighting with his speech. Then he said, still more slowly —

«Perfectly conceivable — dictionary — red oak — amenable — cause — retaining — shuttlecock — alone.»

«Blastoderm’s drunk,» said one man. But the Blastoderm was not drunk. He looked at us in a dazed sort of way, and began motioning with his hands in the half light as the clouds closed overhead. Then — with a scream —

«What is it? — Can’t — reserve — attainable — market — obscure»

But his speech seemed to freeze in him, and — just as the lightning shot two tongues that cut the whole sky into three pieces and the rain fell in quivering sheets — the Blastoderm was struck dumb. He stood pawing and champing like a hard-held horse, and his eyes were full of terror.

The Doctor came over in three minutes, and heard the story. «It’s aphasia,» he said. «Take him to his room. I knew the smash would come.» We carried the Blastoderm across, in the pouring rain, to his quarters, and the Doctor gave him bromide of potassium to make him sleep.

Then the Doctor came back to us and told us that aphasia was like all the arrears of «Punjab Head» falling in a lump; and that only once before — in the case of a sepoy — had he met with so complete a case. I myself have seen mild aphasia in an overworked man, but this sudden dumbness was uncanny — though, as the Blastoderm himself might have said, due to «perfectly natural causes.»

«He’ll have to take leave after this,» said the Doctor. «He won’t be fit for work for another three months. No; it isn’t insanity or anything like it. It’s only complete loss of control over the speech and memory. I fancy it will keep the Blastoderm quiet, though.»

Two days later, the Blastoderm found his tongue again. The first question he asked was: «What was it?» The Doctor enlightened him. «But I can’t understand it!» said the Blastoderm; «I’m quite sane; but I can’t be sure of my mind, it seems — my own memory — can I?»

«Go up into the Hills for three months, and don’t think about it,» said the Doctor.

«But I can’t understand it,» repeated the Blastoderm. «It was my own mind and memory.»

«I can’t help it,» said the Doctor; «there are a good many things you can’t understand; and, by the time you have put in my length of service, you’ll know exactly how much a man dare call his own in this world.»

The stroke cowed the Blastoderm. He could not understand it. He went into the Hills in fear and trembling, wondering whether he would be permitted to reach the end of any sentence he began.

This gave him a wholesome feeling of mistrust. The legitimate explanation, that he had been overworking himself, failed to satisfy him. Something had wiped his lips of speech, as a mother wipes the milky lips of her child, and he was afraid — horribly afraid.

So the Club had rest when he returned; and if ever you come across Aurelian McGoggin laying down the law on things Human — he doesn’t seem to know as much as he used to about things Divine — put your forefinger on your lip for a moment, and see what happens.

Don’t blame me if he throws a glass at your head!

A GERM DESTROYER

As a general rule, it is inexpedient to meddle with questions of State in a land where men are highly paid to work them out for you. This tale is a justifiable exception.

Once in every five years, as you know, we indent for a new Viceroy; and each Viceroy imports, with the rest of his baggage, a Private Secretary, who may or may not be the real Viceroy, just as Fate ordains. Fate looks after the Indian Empire because it is so big and so helpless.

There was a Viceroy once, who brought out with him a turbulent Private Secretary — a hard man with a soft manner and a morbid passion for work. This Secretary was called Wonder — John Fennil Wonder. The Viceroy possessed no name — nothing but a string of counties and two-thirds of the alpha bet after them. He said, in confidence, that he was the electro-plated figurehead of a golden administration, and he watched in a dreamy, amused way Wonder’s attempts to draw matters which were entirely outside his province into his own hands. «When we are all cherubims together,» said His Excellency «once, my dear, good friend Wonder will head the conspiracy for plucking out Gabriel’s tail-feathers or stealing Peter’s keys. Then I shall report him.»

But, though the Viceroy did nothing to check Wonder’s officiousness, other people said unpleasant things. Maybe the Members of Council began it; but, finally, all Simla agreed that there was «too much Wonder, and too little Viceroy,» in that regime. Wonder was always quoting «His Excellency.» It was «His Excellency this,» «His Excellency that,» «In the opinion of His Excellency,» and so on. The Viceroy smiled; but he did not heed. He said that, so long as his old men squabbled with his «dear, good Wonder,» they might be induced to leave the «Immemorial East» in peace.

«No wise man has a policy,» said the Viceroy. «A Policy is the blackmail levied on the Fool by the Unforeseen. I am not the former, and I do not believe in the latter.»

I do not quite see what this means, unless it refers to an Insurance Policy. Perhaps it was the Viceroy’s way of saying — «Lie low.»

That season, came up to Simla one of these crazy people with only a single idea. These are the men who make things move; but they are not nice to talk to. This man’s name was Mellish, and he had lived for fifteen years on land of his own, in Lower Bengal, studying cholera. He held that cholera was a germ that propagated itself as it flew through a muggy atmosphere; and stuck in the branches of trees like a wool-flake. The germ could be rendered sterile, he said, by «Mellish’s Own Invincible Fumigatory» — a heavy violet-black powder — «the result of fifteen years’ scientific investigation, Sir!»

Inventors seem very much alike as a caste. They talk loudly, especially about «conspiracies of monopolists;» they beat upon the table with their fists; and they secrete fragments of their inventions about their persons.

Mellish said that there was a Medical «Ring» at Simla, headed by the Surgeon-General, who was in league, apparently, with all the Hospital Assistants in the Empire. I forget exactly how he proved it, but it had something to do with «skulking up to the Hills;» and what Mellish wanted was the independent evidence of the Viceroy — «Steward of our Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, Sir.» So Mellish went up to Simla, with eighty-four pounds of Fumigatory in his trunk, to speak to the Viceroy and to show him the merits of the invention.