In the Guardianship of God. Flora Annie Webster Steel

A BAD-CHARACTER SUIT

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      A flood of blistering, yellow sunshine was pouring down on to the prostrate body of Private George Afford as he lay on his back, drunk, in an odd little corner between two cook-room walls in the barrack square; and a stream of tepid water from a skin bag was falling on his head as Peroo the bhisti stood over him, directing the crystal curve now on his forehead, now scientifically on his ears. The only result, however, was that Private George Afford tried unavailingly to scratch them, then swore unintelligibly.

      Peroo twisted the nozzle of the mussuck to dryness, and knelt down beside the slack strength in the dust. So kneeling, his glistening curved brown body got mixed up with the glistening curved brown water-bag he carried, until at first sight he seemed a monstrous spider preying on a victim, for his arms and legs were skinny.

      "Sahib!" he said, touching his master on the sleeve. It was a very white sleeve, and the buttons and belts and buckles all glistened white or gold in the searching sunlight, for Peroo saw to them, as he saw to most things about Private Afford's body and soul; why God knows, except that George Afford had once--for his own amusement--whacked a man who, for his, was whacking Peroo. He happened to be one of the best bruisers in the regiment, and George Afford, who was in a sober bout, wanted to beat him; which he did.

      There was no one in sight; nothing in fact save the walls, and an offensively cheerful castor-oil bush which grew, greener than any bay-tree, in one angle, sending splay fingers of shadow close to Private Afford's head as if it wished to aid in the cooling process. But despite the solitude, Peroo's touch on the white sleeve was decorous, his voice deference itself.

      "Sahib!" he repeated. "If the Huzoor does not get up soon, the Captain will find the master on the ground when he passes to rations. And that is unnecessary."

      He might as well have spoken to the dead. George Afford's face, relieved of the douche treatment, settled down to placid, contented sleep. It was not a bad face; and indeed, considering the habits of the man, it was singularly fine and clear cut; but then in youth it had evidently been a superlatively handsome one also.

      Peroo waited a minute or two, then undid the nozzle of his skin bag once more, and drenched the slack body and the dust around it.

      "What a tyranny is here!" he muttered to himself, the wrinkles on his forehead giving him the perplexed look of a baby monkey; "yet the master will die of sunstroke if he be not removed. Hai, Hai! What it is to eat forbidden fruit and find it a turnip."

      With which remark he limped off methodically to the quarter guard and gave notice that Private George Afford was lying dead drunk between cook-rooms Nos. 7 and 8; after which he limped on as methodically about his regular duty of filling the regimental waterpots. What else was there to be done? The special master whom he had elected to serve between whiles would not want his services for a month or two at least, since that period would be spent in clink. For Private George Afford was a habitual offender.

      Such a very habitual offender, indeed, that Evan Griffiths, the second major, had not a word to say when the Adjutant and the Colonel conferred over this last offence, though he had stood Afford's friend many a time; to the extent even of getting him re-enlisted in India--a most unusual favour--when, after an interval of discharge, he turned up at his ex-captain's bungalow begging to be taken on; averring, even, that he had served his way out to India before the mast in that hope, since enlistment at the Depôt might take him to the other battalion. The story, so the Adjutant had said, was palpably false; but the silent little Major had got the Colonel to consent; so Private George Afford--an ideal soldier to look at--had given the master tailor no end of trouble about the fit of his uniform, for he was a bit of a dandy when he was sober. But now even Major Griffiths felt the limit of forbearance was past; nor could a court-martial be expected to take into consideration the trivial fact which lay at the bottom of the observant little Major's mercy, namely, that though when he was sober George Afford was a dandy, when he was drunk--or rather in the stage which precedes actual drunkenness--he was a gentleman. Vulgarity of speech slipped from him then; and even when he was passing into the condition in which there is no speech he would excuse his own lapses from strict decorum with almost pathetic apologies. "It is no excuse, I know, sir," he would say with a charming, regretful dignity, "but I have had a very chequered career--a very chequered career indeed."

      That was true; and one of the black squares of the chessboard of life was his now, for the court-martial which sentenced Private George Afford to but a short punishment added the rider that he was to be thereinafter dismissed from Her Majesty's Service.

      "He is quite incorrigible," said the Colonel, "and as we are pretty certain of going up to punish those scoundrels on the frontier as soon as the weather cools, we had better get rid of him. The regiment mustn't have a speck anywhere, and his sort spoils the youngsters."

      The Major nodded.

      So Private George Afford got his dismissal, also the bad-character suit of mufti which is the Queen's last gift even to such as he.

      * * * * *

      It was full six weeks after he had stood beside that prostrate figure between cook-rooms Nos. 7 and 8 that Peroo was once more engaged in the same task, though not in the same place.

      And this time the thin stream of water falling on George Afford's face found it grimed and dirty, and left it showing all too clearly the traces of a fortnight's debauch. For Peroo, being of a philosophic mind, had told himself, as he had limped away from the quarter guard after his report, that now, while his self-constituted master would have no need of his services, was the time for him to take that leave home which he had deferred so long. Therefore, two or three days after this event, he had turned up at the Quartermaster's office with the curious Indian institution, "the changeling," and preferred his request for a holiday. It was granted, of course; there is no reason why leave should not be granted when a double, willing even to answer to the same name, stands ready to step into the original's shoes, without payment; that remaining a bargain between the doubles.

      "Here," said Peroo, "is my brother. He is even as myself. His character is mine. We are all water-carriers, and he has done the work for two days. I will also leave him my skin bag, so that the Presence may be sure it is clean. He is a Peroo also."

      He might have been the Peroo so far as the Quartermaster's requirements went. So the original went home and the copy took his place; but not for the two months. The order for active service of which the Colonel had spoken came sooner than was expected, and Peroo, hearing of it, started back at once for the regiment. A "changeling" could pass muster in peace, but war required the reality; besides, the master would, no doubt, be released. He was surely too good fighting material to be left behind, Peroo told himself; yet there his hero was, lying in the dust of a bye-alley in the bazaar in a ragged bad-character suit, while the barrack squares were alive with men, not half so good to look at, talking, as the mules were laden, of the deeds they were to do!

      The wrinkles on Peroo's forehead grew more like those of a monkey in arms than ever. This was indeed a tyranny! but at least the Presence could be moved out of the burning sun this time without, of necessity, getting him into more trouble. So a few friends were called, and together they carried George Afford into the windowless slip of a room which Peroo locked at four o'clock in the morning and unlocked at ten at night, but which, nevertheless, served him as a home. There was nothing