Part 5 (2/2)
Now Findlayson might have collapsed a dozen times before the Government would have cared enough to give him the vacation he needed. Not that Government is callous, like an elephant, but because it is conducted, as a witty Cobra once remarked in the jungle as he fascinated a Tigress, by a lot of Red Tapirs. Findlayson put in an application for a six months'
vacation, but by the time the necessary consent had reached him the six months were up. Everybody remembers the tale of Dorkins of the Welsh Fusileers and his appointment to the Department of the Poloese, how his term of office was to be six years, and how by the time his credentials reached him his term of office had expired. So with Findlayson. On the very date of the expiration of his desired leave he received permission to go, and of course could not then do so, because it was too late.
Fortunately for Findlayson, however, the Viceroy himself happened to be pa.s.sing through, and Findlayson entertained him at a luncheon on the Bridge. By some curious mistake, when the nuts and raisins were pa.s.sed, Findlayson had provided a plateful of steel nuts, designed to hold rivets in place, instead of the usual a.s.sortment of almonds and _hiki-ree_.
”This man needs a rest,” said the Viceroy, as he broke his front tooth trying to crack one of the steel nuts, and he immediately extended Findlayson's leave to twenty years without pay, for which Findlayson was very grateful.
”What is the matter with the man?” asked the Viceroy, as he drove to the station with the practising Jinrikshaw of the place.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE VICEROY EXAMINES HIS RUINED SMILE]
”It's my professional opinion,” replied the Jinrikshaw, ”that the Sahib has a bad attack of melancholia. He hasn't laughed for six months. If we could only get him to laugh, I think he'd recover.”
”Then it was not in a jocular spirit that he ruined my teeth with those nuts?” demanded the Viceroy, taking a small mirror out of his pocket and gazing ruefully on his ruined smile.
”No, your most Excellent Excellency,” replied the Jinrikshaw. ”The fact that he ate five of them himself shows that it was an error, not a jest.”
It was thus that Findlayson got his vacation, and even to this day the Kaskalooloo folk are laughing over his error more heartily than they ever laughed over a joke.
A month after leaving his post Findlayson reached London, where he was placed under the care of the most famous physicians. They did everything they could to make him laugh, without success. _Punch_ was furnished, and he read it through day after day, and burst into hysterical weeping.
They took him to the theatres, and he never even smiled. They secured a front seat in the House of Commons for him during important debates, and he merely sobbed. They took him to the Army and Navy Stores, and he s.h.i.+vered with fear. Even Beerbohm Tree as Lady Macbeth, or whatever role it was he was playing at the time, failed to coax the old-time dimple to his cheek. His friends began to whisper among themselves that ”old Findlayson was done for,” when Berkeley Hauksbee, who had been with him in the Soudan, suggested a voyage to the United States.
”He'll see enough there to laugh at, or I'm an unshod, unbroken, saw-backed, shark-eating skate!” he a.s.serted, and as a last resource Findlayson was packed, bag and baggage, aboard the liner _New York_.
The first three days out Findlayson was dead to the world. He lay like a fallen log in the primeval forest. Stewards were of no avail. Even the repeated calls of the doctor, whose apprehensions were aroused, could not restore him to life.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THEY GAVE HIM _PUNCH_]
”They'll be sewin' him up in a jute bag and droppin' him overboard if he doesn't come to by to-morrow,” observed the Water Bottle to the Soap Dish, with a sympathetic glance at the prostrate Findlayson.
”He'll be seasicker than ever if they do,” returned the Soap Dish. ”It's a long swim from here to Sandy Hook.”
But Findlayson came to in time to avert the catastrophe, and took several turns up and down the deck. He played horse-billiards with an English curate, but showed no sign of interest or amus.e.m.e.nt even at the curious aspect of the ladies who lay inert in the steamer chairs ranged along the deck.
”I'm afraid it's hopeless,” said Peroo, his valet, shaking his head sadly. ”Unless I take him in hand myself.” And Peroo was seized with an idea.
”I'll do it!” he cried.
He approached Findlayson.
”The Sahib will not laugh,” he said. ”He will not smile even. He has not snickered all day. Take these, then. They're straight opium, but there's fun in them.”
He took a small zinc bait-box from his fis.h.i.+ng-kit and handed it to Findlayson, who, on opening it, found a dozen or more brown pellets.
Hastily swallowing six of them, the sick man turned over in his bunk and tried to go to sleep, while Peroo went into the smoking-room for a game of _Pok-Kah_ with a party of _Drummerz_ who were crossing to America.
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