The players were not conscious of any special regard for each other. They squabbled whenever they met; but they ardently desired to meet, as men without water desire to drink. They were lonely folk who understood the dread meaning of loneliness. They were all under thirty years of age,--which is too soon for any man to possess that knowledge.
‘Pilsener?’ said Spurstow, after the second rubber, mopping his forehead.
‘Beer’s out, I’m sorry to say, and there’s hardly enough soda-water for to-night,’ said Hummil.
‘What filthy bad management!’ Spurstow snarled.
‘Can’t help it. I’ve written and wired; but the trains don’t come through regularly yet. Last week the ice ran out,--as Lowndes knows.’
‘Glad I didn’t come. I could ha’ sent you some if I had known, though. Phew! it’s too hot to go on playing bumblepuppy.’ This with a savage scowl at Lowndes, who only laughed. He was a hardened offender.
Mottram rose from the table and looked out of a chink in the shutters.
The company yawned all together and betook themselves to an aimless investigation of all Hummil’s possessions,--guns, tattered novels, saddlery, spurs, and the like. They had fingered them a score of times before, but there was really nothing else to do.
‘Last week’s Gazette of India, and a cutting from a home paper. My father sent it out. It’s rather amusing.’
‘One of those vestrymen that call ‘emselves M.P.’s again, is it?’ said Spurstow, who read his newspapers when he could get them.
‘Yes. Listen to this. It’s to your address, Lowndes. The man was making a speech to his constituents, and he piled it on. Here’s a sample: “And I assert unhesitatingly that the Civil Service in India is the preserve--the pet preserve--of the aristocracy of England. What does the democracy--what do the masses--get from that country, which we have step by step fraudulently annexed? I answer, nothing whatever. It is farmed with a single eye to their own interests by the scions of the aristocracy. They take good care to maintain their lavish scale of incomes, to avoid or stifle any inquiries into the nature and conduct of their administration, while they themselves force the unhappy peasant to pay with the sweat of his brow for all the luxuries in which they are lapped.”’ Hummil waved the cutting above his head. ‘’Ear! ‘ear!’ said his audience.