It is a common enough experience, and George, not being a whit behind many another young Englishman, fought his way through it pluckily, while Ganesha, the groom, fished for soda-water bottles all day long, and the water carrier circled round the house, cooling the dust with sprinklings, and keeping an eye on the punkah coolie during the factotum's absence over more barley-water or beef-tea.
Scorching nights, blistering days, devils in sparrow shape, the fringe of the towel pinned to the punkah, flicking your nose, yet sparing the mosquito battening on your cheek. All this George knew, till discomfort itself grew dim, and he ceased to care for anything in this world or the next.
Then after a time there was something dead cold--cold as ice--trickling down his nose, and that surely was Dan's face. At any rate it was Dan's voice.
'It's all right, dear boy. Sure the doctor's ridden out too, and you'll be round in a jiffy.'
It is an Eastern record of life which tells us of a love passing the love of women, and, even in these latter days one sees it more often East than West; perhaps, paradoxically, because men have so often to play a woman's part towards each other in India. Dan Fitzgerald in particular was as gentle as any sister of mercy, and stronger than most. To be sure he sat on the bed smoking, and after a day or two his language over the barley-water was simply disgraceful. But by this time George had come back from No-man's-land and could remember a little booklet called 'Home Comforts Abroad,' which had been given him by his grandmother. So Dan ferreted it out from the bottom of a box full of canal records, and ordered the charcoal brazier into the verandah. Then he stirred diligently while George, propped up by pillows, read out the directions weakly. The result being that the factotum bore away a deadly mixture in triumph, because even with this surpassing love in his heart for the compounder, the boy could not swallow it.
Nevertheless, wearied out by feeble laughter, he slept the first real sleep of recovery and woke to extol the factotum's beef-tea. That functionary being thus appeased, the little red brick furnace out in the wilderness became a home indeed; that is to say, an abode of love, and peace, and a great contentment.