Part 24 (1/2)

It did my heart good to hear Nani-Tal fall on the creature. After giving it no end of a lecture, he concluded, ”And now, young man, you'll just go back to your jackal for a thousand years, and learn better manners.”

The wretch protested; it asked for an elephant or even a tiger. Nani-Tal was obdurate.

”A jackal will just suit you,” he said. ”Be off!” The creature vanished.

Simultaneously Nani-Tal began to disintegrate.

”Wait a bit!” cried the rajah.

”I can't. I'm summoned to St. James' Hall. There's a large audience, and the professor has been in convulsions seven minutes.”

I tried to grasp his hand in thanks. ”If you want another,” he said, ”you must go through the course--the full course. There's no other way. Let this be a lesson to you.” And with this parting remark he disintegrated.

The rajah lit a cigar, and I, lighter at heart than I had been for many days, followed his example.

”It was wrong of me,” said the rajah; ”I won't do it again.”

”It's a pity it turned out so badly,” I remarked; ”it was quite a comfort at first.”

”They're all like that, unless you keep a tight hand on them. Shall you take the course?”

”Not I. I've had enough of it.”

”Perhaps you're right. Excuse me; I have to go to the Deccan on business.”

He fell back on the sofa, apparently in a trance, and I went off to the dean's lecture. It makes all the difference whether you know how to do a thing or not.

THE NEBRASKA LOADSTONE.

If there was one man in college whom the rajah thoroughly and heartily detested, it was the captain of the boat club. He had many faults; he was very tall and powerful, and delighted in contrasting the English physique with that of inferior races; by which he meant, among others, the rajah's race. His manner was abrupt and overbearing, his laugh loud and unmusical. In fact, he grated horribly on the rajah; and it was merely the final straw when, in the exhilaration of a b.u.mp supper,--full, as the rajah remarked in disgust, of cow and strong drink,--he called that prince, in playful chaff, a ”n.i.g.g.e.r.” The rajah swore melodiously in Hindustani, and I saw that he meant to be revenged.

In those days the entertainment of the Nebraska Loadstone created a _furore_. Everybody went to see her, and everybody came away convinced that she possessed marvelous powers. Her peculiar gift--but everybody remembers the details of the performance, and how the tricks were finally, one by one, exposed, so that her adherents and believers were driven from one position to another, until at last they had to fall back on one single performance out of all those that the Loadstone gave, and maintain that on that occasion at least something unexplained and inexplicable did really happen. It is with the events of that particular evening that I am concerned. I think I can throw some light on them.

At first, however, there were many believers and few skeptics. The dean carefully pointed out that Plato nowhere denied the existence of odic force; and the bursar, who was generally supposed to be little better than an atheist, declared that Spencer in one pa.s.sage impliedly a.s.serted it; even the warden, in his sermon, told us that it was better, according to Bacon, to believe two errors than refuse one truth--which was, to say the least of it, sitting on the fence. But none of these authorities shook the robust skepticism of the captain of the boat club.

He knew a conjurer, and the conjurer had told him how it was done, and he was going to expose the Loadstone.

”But why haven't you?” I urged. ”She's been here a week.”

”He will not be too hard on her at first,” said the rajah, with a little sneer.

”I'll bust her up this very night,” said Waterer. ”I would have done it before, only I was gated.”

The excuse was good, and Waterer departed, full of boastings and self-confidence, to gather together a large number of the noisy men, and make a pleasant party to ”guy” the unhappy Loadstone. I stayed to smoke a pipe with the rajah.

”Of course she's a fraud,” said he; ”and I believe that animal really has got hold of the right explanation.”

”I shall go and see it,” I announced.

After a moment's silent smoking, the rajah looked up with a twinkle in his eye. ”So shall I--if n.i.g.g.e.rs are admitted.”

After hall, he and I set out together for the town hall. We found the first two rows of stalls occupied by Waterer and his friends. They were all in evening dress, and had obviously dined--not in hall. The rajah and I seated ourselves just behind them. The room was full, and the feats were being most successful; each was followed by general applause, broken only by some gibes from our friends in front. These latter grew so p.r.o.nounced that the Loadstone's manager at last came forward and pointedly invited one of the scoffers to submit himself to experiment.