Keevin chuckled. ‘In vino Veritas,’said he, sipping his peg. ‘Maisey, you needn’t wear your heart on your sleeve in that disgustingly open fashion. Play euchre if you like, but don’t make a show of yourself.’
‘No, never make a show of yourself,’ said the stranger approvingly. ‘Lead another suit ostentatiously, Mr Maisey, and you’ll be surprised how the Hearts range themselves in your hand. If that fails and your hand’s a poor one, order up Diamonds and the chances are that you hold the Left Bower – as I held just now. Above all don’t risk your best cards first.’
‘H’mm,’ said Vennel. ‘That’s nonsense. Keevin, it’s your deal.’
Keevin turned up Hearts again and all the players passed once, and a second time it came to Vennel’s turn to make his trump.
‘I make Clubs,’ said he. ‘And I’ll go alone on this hand. Both Bowers, the ace, king and queen. That’s good enough. Put down your cards.’
‘Not quite,’ murmured the stranger. ‘You have forgotten The Joker,’ and he laid it on the table. ‘Never mind playing the tricks out. The Joker has a knack of turning up unexpectedly among the clubs. You’re euchred, too, Mr Vennel.’
‘How do you hold cards that always get in the way?’ grumbled Vennel with far more heat than the game demanded. ‘You did Maisey out of his sweep of Hearts and now you’ve done me. Teach me how to hold Clubs as long as I live – clubs that are always new and always good for something – clubs that you don’t get tired of looking at – first-class clubs, recherche-wallahs – good liquor, twenty billiard tables – stories that haven’t all been told and all that, you know. You’ve dropped in from deuce knows where, and you pretend to know all about everything. Have a peg and show me how to turn up Clubs.’
‘Heigho!’ said Maisey behind his cheroot. ‘That comes ofmixing old brandy with champagne and pegging all the afternoon. Vernnel’s a coarse-minded ruffian when he lets himself go,’ and he winked at Keevin.
The stranger drank his peg and never did soda-water fizz so fiercely as the liquor that touched his lips. ‘Clubs?’ said he lazily. ‘They are a safe suit so long as you have Diamonds to back ’em and keep clear of Hearts. But then the Spade will interfere sometimes. Let’s go on, Mr Maisey.’
Maisey turned up Diamonds and all passed twice. The deal was lost and the stranger took the pack. ‘I go alone,’ and he without looking at the card he turned up, ‘and I hope that you are all as well stocked as I am.’
‘Hold on. You’ve turned up The Joker, What are you going to make trumps?’ said Vennel.
‘Spades,’ said the stranger. ‘Down with your dust.’ The Joker took the left Bower from Vennel and lay-cards from the other two men.
‘No trumps. How strange!’ said the stranger. ‘Glad I drew that Bower. Right, king, queen, ace, and you had all Clubs, Mr Vennel, all Diamonds partner, and all Hearts, Mr Maisey – the suit in fact that each one wanted. I don’t think I need to learn how to make Spades. Shall we go on? By the way, when I sat down I entirely forgot to ask what we were playing for: for we must settle that little matter.’
‘It was a blessed bear-garden,’ said Vennel sulkily. ‘You came in and played miracles. Do you suppose that that’s going to be reckoned as a serious round?’
‘I do very much suppose so,’ said the stranger quietly. ‘It’s one of the most serious games you’ve ever played, and in return for the instruction I’ve given you, you will be good enough to pay up.’
‘Pay up what? This is frivolling. Here pony and let us get to business. Who in the world are you to tell us how the game goes?’
‘I don’t quite know,’ said the stranger. ‘Some people call me one thing and some another. You’d better call me The Joker.’
‘Then you’d better not joke here,’ said Vennel angrily. He was as causelessly upset as the other two men.
‘Oh, but I must though. That’s my little way. You’re a most ungrateful set of men. I show you how to get your heart’s desire and you refuse to pay me. I suppose I must take my reward. Vennel will please to turn reddish-blue and take off his signet-ring.’
‘The thing hurts or else I shouldn’t,’ said Vennel placing it on the table. His fingers were certainly swelling and his face was heavily flushed.
‘Maisey, a few, of those luxuriant locks from just above the temple. They’re very pretty, but you don’t want ’em. Drop the eyelid slightly and I think we can make that mouth a little coarser,’ said the stranger.
It may have been the heat of the room that caused Maisey to half shut his eyes and drop his lower lip, and it may have been a draught through the door that blew back the hair above the forehead and showed how far the baldness ran up into the scalp.
‘One moment, Keevin. A touch of grey on the eyebrows would improve you and we’ll take the curve out of that cheek and put a line from the nose to the corner of the mouth. And now I think you’re about finished. You’ll forgive my flying, but I’ve got to see a man. There go the bells, gentlemen, and armed with all my knowledge I wish you a Happy New Year.’
The three stared at each other in silence while the bells clashed and hammered without, and in the billiard-room men sang Auld Lang Syne.
‘Let’s get out of this,’ said Vennel in a sudden fury. ‘Let’s hammer the brute!’ And he charged into the billiard-room followed by Keevin and Maisey.
‘What a group you are! Who’s been rubbing billiard-chalk on your eyebrow, Keevin, and painting you with burnt matches? Vennel, I’d advise you to drop oysters. They make you look bloated, old man! Maisey, wake up and open those beautiful blue eyes of yours and don’t stand like a codfish,’were some of the sentences that greeted their appearance.
‘Have you seen a brute in evening-dress?’ began Vennel and a shout of laughter cut him short.
‘There was a rummy sort of sun-dried Johnnie in here – s’pose he’s one of the visitors – making us all laugh about nothing, and chalking our coats. Confound the man, he’s marked my front with a great ace of spades!’ said one pool-player.
‘And mine!’ said two others. There were thirty-nine men in the room.
‘That’s the fellow we’re looking for,’ said Maisey; but on second thoughts he added, ‘I don’t think we shall find him. I say, you fellows, do you believe in the Devil?’
‘At midnight certainly. Khitmatgar, Devilly huldee sub log Kiwasti and bahut pipa beer sharab. That was a happy thought of yours, Maisey.’
THE WANDERING JEW
‘If you go once round the world in an easterly direction, you gain one day,’ said the men of science to John Hay. In after years John Hay went east, west, north, and south, transacted business, made love, and begat a family, as have done many men, and the scientific information above recorded lay neglected in the deeps of his mind with a thousand other matters of equal importance.
When a rich relative died, he found himself wealthy beyond any reasonable expectation that he had entertained in his previous career, which had been a chequered and evil one. Indeed, long before the legacy came to him, there existed in the brain of John Hay a little cloud – a momentary obscuration of thought that came and went almost before he could realise that there was any solution of continuity. So do the bats flit round the eaves of a house to show that the darkness is falling. He entered upon great possessions in money, land, and houses; but behind his delight stood a ghost that cried out that his enjoyment of these things should not be of long duration. It was the ghost of the rich relative, who had been permitted to return to earth to torture his nephew into the grave. Wherefore, under the spur of this constant reminder, John Hay, always preserving the air of heavy business-like stolidity that hid the shadow on his mind, turned investments, houses, and lands into sovereigns – rich, round, red, English sovereigns, each one worth twenty shillings. Lands may become valueless, and houses fly heavenward on the wings of red flame, but till the Day of Judgment a sovereign will always be a sovereign – that is to say, a king of pleasures.
Possessed of his sovereigns, John
Hay would fain have spentthem one by one on such coarse amusements as his soul loved; but he was haunted by the instant fear of Death; for the ghost of his relative stood in the hall of his house close to the hat-rack, shouting up the stairway that life was short, that there was no hope of increase of days, and that the undertakers were already roughing out his nephew’s coffin. John Hay was generally alone in the house, and even when he had company, his friends could not hear the clamorous uncle. The shadow inside his brain grew larger and blacker. His fear of death was driving John Hay mad.
Then, from the deeps of his mind, where he had stowed away all his discarded information, rose to light the scientific fact of the easterly journey. On the next occasion that his uncle shouted up the stairway urging him to make haste and live, a shriller voice cried, ‘Who goes round the world once easterly, gains one day.’
His growing diffidence and distrust of mankind made John Hay unwilling to give this precious message of hope to his friends. They might take it up and analyse it. He was sure it was true, but it would pain him acutely were rough hands to examine it too closely. To him alone of all the toiling generations of mankind had the secret of immortality been vouchsafed. It would be impious – against all the designs of the Creator – to set mankind hurrying eastward. Besides, this would crowd the steamers inconveniently, and John Hay wished of all things to be alone. If he could get round the world in two months – some one of whom he had read, he could not remember the name, had covered the passage in eighty days – he would gain a clear day; and by steadily continuing to do it for thirty years, would gain one hundred and eighty days, or nearly the half of a year. It would not be much, but in course of time, as civilisation advanced, and the Euphrates Valley Railway was opened, he could improve the pace.
Armed with many sovereigns, John Hay, in the thirty-fifth year of his age, set forth on his travels, two voices bearing him company from Dover as he sailed to Calais. Fortune favoured him. The Euphrates Valley Railway was newly opened, and hewas the first man who took ticket direct from Calais to Calcutta – thirteen days in the train. Thirteen days in the train are not good for the nerves; but he covered the world and returned to Calais from America in twelve days over the two months, and started afresh with four and twenty hours of precious time to his credit. Three years passed, and John Hay religiously went round this earth seeking for more time wherein to enjoy the remainder of his sovereigns. He became known on many lines as the man who wanted to go on; when people asked him what he was and what he did, he answered.
‘I’m the person who intends to live, and I am trying to do it now.’
His days were divided between watching the white wake spinning behind the stern of the swiftest steamers, or the brown earth flashing past the windows of the faster trains; and he noted in a pocket-book every minute that he had railed or screwed out of remorseless eternity.
‘This is better than praying for long life,’ quoth John Hay as he turned his face eastward for his twentieth trip. The years had done more for him than he dared to hope. By the extension of the Brahmaputra Valley line to meet the newly-developed China Midland, the Calais railway ticket held good via Karachi and Calcutta to Hongkong. The round trip could be managed in a fraction over forty-seven days, and, filled with fatal exultation, John Hay told the secret of his longevity to his only friend, the house-keeper of his rooms in London. He spoke and passed; but the woman was one of resource, and immediately took counsel with the lawyers who had first informed John Hay of his golden legacy. Very many sovereigns still remained, and another Hay longed to spend them on things more sensible than railway tickets and steamer accommodation.
The chase was long, for when a man is journeying literally for the dear life, he does not tarry upon the road. Round the world Hay swept anew, and overtook the wearied Doctor, who had been sent out to look for him, in Madras. It was there that he found the reward of his toil and the assurance of a blessed immortality. In half an hour the Doctor, watching always theparched lips, the shaking hands, and the eye that turned eternally to the east, won John Hay to rest in a little house close to the Madras surf. All that Hay need do was to hang by ropes from the roof of the room and let the round earth swing free beneath him. This was better than steamer or train, for he gained a day in a day, and was thus the equal of the undying sun. The other Hay would pay his expenses throughout eternity.
It is true that we cannot yet take tickets from Calais to Hongkong, though that will come about in fifteen years; but men say that if you wander along the southern coast of India you shall find in a neatly whitewashed little bungalow, sitting in a chair swung from the roof, over a sheet of thin steel which he knows so well destroys the attraction of the earth, an old and worn man who for ever faces the rising sun, a stop-watch in his hand, racing against eternity. He cannot drink, he does not smoke, and his living expenses amount to perhaps twenty-five rupees a month, but he is John Hay, the Immortal. Without, he hears the thunder of the wheeling world with which he is careful to explain he has no connection whatever; but if you say that it is only the noise of the surf, he will cry bitterly, for the shadow on his brain is passing away as the brain ceases to work, and he doubts sometimes whether the Doctor spoke the truth.
‘Why does not the sun always remain over my head?’ asks John Hay.
THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD
What did the colonel’s lady think?
Nobody never knew,
Somebody asked the sergeant’s wife
An’ she told ’em true.
When you git to a man in the case
They’re like a row o’ pins,
For the colonel’s lady an’ Judy O’Grady
Are sisters under their skins.
Barrack Room Ballad
All day I had followed at the heels of a pursuing army engaged on one of the finest battles that ever camp of exercise beheld. Thirty thousand troops, had, by the wisdom of the Government of India, been turned loose over a few thousand square miles of country to practise in peace what they would never attempt in war. Consequently cavalry charged unshaken infantry at the trot. Infantry captured artillery by frontal attacks delivered in line of quarter columns, and mounted infantry skirmished up to the wheels of an armoured train which carried nothing more deadly than a twenty-five pounder Armstrong, two Nordenfeldts, and a few score volunteers all cased in three-eighths-inch boiler-plate. Yet it was a very lifelike camp. Operations did not cease at sundown; nobody knew the country and nobody spared man or horse. There was unending cavalry scouting and almost unending forced work over broken ground. The Army of the South had finally pierced the centre of the Army of the North, and was pouring through a gap hot-foot to capture a city of strategic importance. Its front extended fanwise, the sticks being represented by regiments strung out along the line of route backwards to the divisional transport columns and all thelumber that trails behind an army on the move. On its right the broken left of the Army of the North was flying in mass, chased by the Southern horse and hammered by the Southern guns till these had been pushed far beyond the limits of their last support. Then the flying sat down to rest, while the elated commandant of the pursuing force telegraphed that he held all in check and observation.
Unluckily he did not observe that three miles to his right flank a flying column of Northern horse with a detachment of Ghoorkhas and British troops had been pushed round as fast as the failing light allowed, to cut across the entire rear of the Southern Army, – to break, as it were, all the ribs of the fan where they converged by striking at the transport, reserve ammunition, and artillery supplies. Their instructions were to go in, avoiding the few scouts who might not have been drawn off by the pursuit, and create sufficient excitement to impress the Southern Army with the wisdom of guarding their own flank and rear before they captured cities. It was a pretty manoeuvre neatly carried out.
Speaking for the second division of the Southern Army, our first intimation of the attack was at twilight, when the artillery were labouring in deep sand,
most of the escort were trying to help them out, and the main body of the infantry had gone on. A Noah’s Ark of elephants, camels, and the mixed menagerie of an Indian transport-train bubbled and squealed behind the guns, when there appeared from nowhere in particular British infantry to the extent of three companies, who sprang to the heads of the gun-horses and brought all to a standstill amid oaths and cheers.
‘How’s that, umpire?’ said the major commanding the attack, and with one voice the drivers and limber gunners answered ‘Hout!’ while the colonel of artillery sputtered.
‘All your scouts are charging our main body,’ said the major. ‘Your flanks are unprotected for two miles. I think we’ve broken the back of this division. And listen, – there go the Ghoorkhas!’
A weak fire broke from the rear-guard more than a mile away, and was answered by cheerful howlings. The Ghoorkhas,who should have swung clear of the second division, had stepped on its tail in the dark, but drawing off hastened to reach the next line of attack, which lay almost parallel to us five or six miles away.
Our column swayed and surged irresolutely – three batteries, the divisional ammunition reserve, the baggage, and a section of the hospital and bearer corps. The commandant ruefully promised to report himself ‘cut up’ to the nearest umpire, and commending his cavalry and all other cavalry to the special care of Eblis, toiled on to resume touch with the rest of the division.
‘We’ll bivouac here tonight,’ said the major, ‘I have a notion that the Ghoorkhas will get caught. They may want us to re-form on. Stand easy till the transport gets away.’
A hand caught my beast’s bridle and led him out of the choking dust; a larger hand deftly canted me out of the saddle; and two of the hugest hands in the world received me sliding. Pleasant is the lot of the special correspondent who falls into such hands as those of Privates Mulvaney, Ortheris, and Learoyd.