Chapter VI: The Soul of the Native Woman

Mail day is ever a day of supreme interest for the young and for the matter of that for the middle-aged, too. Sanders hated mail days because the bulk of his correspondence had to do with Government, and Government never sat down with a pen in its hand to wish Sanders many happy returns of the day or to tell him scandalous stories about mutual friends.

Rather the Government (by inference) told him scandalous stories about himself--of work not completed to the satisfaction of Downing Street--a thoroughfare given to expecting miracles.

Hamilton had a sister who wrote wittily and charmingly every week, and there was another girl ... Still, two letters and a bright pink paper or two made a modest postbag by the side of Lieutenant Tibbetts’ mail.

There came to Bones every mail day a thick wad of letters and parcels innumerable, and he could sit at the big table for hours on end, whistling a little out of tune, mumbling incoherently. He had a trick of commenting upon his letters aloud, which was very disconcerting for Hamilton. Bones wouldn’t open a letter and get half-way through it before he began his commenting.

“ ... poor soul ... dear! dear! ... what a silly old ass ... ah, would you ... don’t do it, Billy...”

To Hamilton’s eyes the bulk of correspondence rather increased than diminished.

“You must owe a lot of money,” he said one day.

“Eh!”

“All these... !” Hamilton opened his hand to a floor littered with discarded envelopes. “I suppose they represent demands...”

“Dear lad,” said Bones brightly, “they represent popularity--I’m immensely popular, sir,” he gulped a little as he fished out two dainty envelopes from the pile before him; “you may not have experienced the sensation, but I assure you, sir, it’s pleasing, it’s doocidly pleasing!”

“Complacent ass,” said Hamilton, and returned to his own correspondence.

Systematically Bones went through his letters, now and again consulting a neat little morocco-covered note-book. (It would appear he kept a very careful record of every letter he wrote home, its contents, the date of its dispatch, and the reply thereto.) He had reduced letter writing to a passion, spent most of his evenings writing long epistles to his friends--mostly ladies of a tender age--and had incidentally acquired a reputation in the Old Country for his brilliant powers of narrative.

This, Hamilton discovered quite by accident. It would appear that Hamilton’s sister had been on a visit--was in fact on the visit when she wrote one letter which so opened Hamilton’s eyes--and mentioned that she was staying with some great friends of Bones’. She did not, of course, call him “Bones,” but “Mr. Tibbetts.”

“I should awfully like to meet him,” she wrote, “he must be a very interesting man. Aggie Vernon had a letter from him yesterday wherein he described his awful experience lion-hunting.

“To be chased by a lion and caught and then carried to the beast’s lair must have been awful!

“Mr. Tibbetts is very modest about it in his letter, and beyond telling Aggie that he escaped by sticking his finger in the lion’s eye he says little of his subsequent adventure. By the way, Pat, Aggie tells me that you had a bad bout of fever and that Mr. Tibbetts carried you for some miles to the nearest doctor. I wish you wouldn’t keep these things so secret, it worries me dreadfully unless you tell me--even the worst about yourself. I hope your interesting friend returned safely from his dangerous expedition into the interior--he was on the point of leaving when his letter was dispatched and was quite gloomy about his prospects...”

Hamilton read this epistle over and over again, then he sent for Bones.

That gentleman came most cheerfully, full of fine animal spirits, and----

“Just had a letter about you, Bones,” said Hamilton carelessly.

“About me, sir!” said Bones; “from the War Office--I’m not being decorated or anything!” he asked anxiously.

“No--nothing so tragic; it was a letter from my sister, who is staying with the Vernons.”

“Oh!” said Bones going suddenly red.

“What a modest devil you are,” said the admiring Hamilton, “having a lion hunt all to yourself and not saying a word about it to anybody.”

Bones made curious apologetic noises.

“I didn’t know there were any lions in the country,” pursued Hamilton remorselessly. “Liars, yes! But lions, no! I suppose you brought them with you--and I suppose you know also, Bones, that it is considered in lion-hunting circles awfully rude to stick your finger into a lion’s eye? It is bad sportsmanship to say the least, and frightfully painful for the lion.”

Bones was making distressful grimaces.

“How would you like a lion to stick his finger in your eye?” asked Hamilton severely; “and, by the way, Bones, I have to thank you.”

He rose solemnly, took the hand of his reluctant and embarrassed second and wrung.

“Thank you,” said Hamilton, in a broken voice, “for saving my life.”

“Oh, I say, sir,” began Bones feebly.

“To carry a man eighty miles on your back is no mean accomplishment, Bones--especially when I was unconscious----”

“I don’t say you were unconscious, sir. In fact, sir----” floundered Lieutenant Tibbetts as red as a peony.

“And yet I was unconscious,” insisted Hamilton firmly. “I am still unconscious, even to this day. I have no recollection of your heroic effort, Bones, I thank you.”

“Well, sir,” said Bones, “to make a clean breast of the whole affair----”

“And this dangerous expedition of yours, Bones, an expedition from which you might never return--that,” said Hamilton in a hushed voice, “is the best story I have heard for years.”

“Sir,” said Bones, speaking under the stress of considerable emotion, “I am clean bowled, sir. The light-hearted fairy stories which I wrote to cheer, so to speak, the sick-bed of an innocent child, sir, they have recoiled upon my own head. Peccavi, mea culpi, an’ all those jolly old expressions that you’ll find in the back pages of the dictionary.”

“Oh, Bones, Bones!” chuckled Hamilton.

“You mustn’t think I’m a perfect liar, sir,” began Bones, earnestly.

“I don’t think you’re a perfect liar,” answered Hamilton, “I think you’re the most inefficient liar I’ve ever met.”

“Not even a liar, I’m a romancist, sir,” Bones stiffened with dignity and saluted, but whether he was saluting Hamilton, or the spirit of Romance, or in sheer admiration was saluting himself, Hamilton did not know.

“The fact is, sir,” said Bones confidentially, “I’m writing a book!”

He stepped back as though to better observe the effect of his words.

“What about?” asked Hamilton, curiously.

“About things I’ve seen and things I know,” said Bones, in his most impressive manner.

“Oh, I see!” said Hamilton, “one of those waistcoat pocket books.”

Bones swallowed the insult with a gulp.

“I’ve been asked to write a book,” he said; “my adventures an’ all that sort of thing. Of course they needn’t have happened, really----”

“In that case, Bones, I’m with you,” said Hamilton; “if you’re going to write a book about things that haven’t happened to you, there’s no limit to its size.”

“You’re bein’ a jolly cruel old officer, sir,” said Bones, pained by the cold cynicism of his chief. “But I’m very serious, sir. This country is full of material. And everybody says I ought to write a book about it--why, dash it, sir, I’ve been here nearly two months!”

“It seems years,” said Hamilton.

Bones was perfectly serious, as he had said. He did intend preparing a book for publication, had dreams of a great literary career, and an ultimate membership of the Athenæum Club belike. It had come upon him like a revelation that such a career called him. The week after he had definitely made up his mind to utilize his gifts in this direction, his outgoing mail was heavier than ever. For to three and twenty English and American publishers, whose names he culled from a handy work of reference, he advanced a business-like offer to prepare for the press a volume “of 316 pages printed in type about the same size as enclosed,” and to be entitled:

MY WILD LIFE AMONGST CANNIBALS.

BY

AUGUSTUS TIBBETTS, Lieutenant of Houssas.

Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society; Fellow of the Royal

Asiatic Society; Member of the Ethnological Society and Junior Army

Service Club.

Bones had none of these qualifications, save the latter, but as he told himself he’d jolly soon be made a member if his book was a howling success.

No sooner had his letters been posted than he changed his mind, and he addressed three and twenty more letters to the publishers, altering the title to:

THE TYRANNY OF THE WILDS.

Being Some Observations on the Habits and Customs

of Savage Peoples.

BY

AUGUSTUS TIBBETTS (LT.).

With a Foreword by Captain Patrick Hamilton.

“You wouldn’t mind writing a foreword, dear old fellow?” he asked.

“Charmed,” said Hamilton. “Have you a particular preference for any form?”

“Just please yourself, sir,” said a delighted Bones, so Hamilton covered two sheets of foolscap with an appreciation which began:

“The audacity of the author of this singularly uninformed work is to be admired without necessarily being imitated. Two months’ residence in a land which offered many opportunities for acquiring inaccurate data, has resulted in a work which must stand for all time as a monument of murderous effort,” etc.

Bones read the appreciation very carefully.

“Dear old sport,” he said, a little troubled, as he reached the end; “this is almost uncomplimentary.”

You couldn’t depress Bones or turn him from his set purpose. He scribed away, occupying his leisure moments with his great work. His normal correspondence suffered cruelly, but Bones was relentless. Hamilton sent him north to collect the hut tax, and at first Bones resented this order, believing that it was specially designed to hamper him.

“Of course, sir,” he said, “I’ll obey you, if you order me in accordance with regulations an’ all that sort of rot, but believe me, sir, you’re doin’ an injury to literature. Unborn generations, sir, will demand an explanation----”

“Get out!” said Hamilton crossly.