It was a little too early for the doctor, so I proposed a drink, and thereupon he developed a vein of joviality.
As we sat over our vermouths he glorified the Company's business, and by-and-by I expressed casually my sur-prise at him not going out there. He became very cool and collected all at once. 'I am not such a fool as Ilook, quoth Plato to his disciples,' he said sententiously, emptied his glass with great resolution, and we rose.
"The old doctor felt my pulse, evidently thinking of something else the while. 'Good, good for there,' he mumbled, and then with a certain eagerness asked me whether I would let him measure my head. Rather sur-prised, I said Yes, when he produced a thing like calipers and got the dimensions back and front and every way, taking notes carefully. He was an unshaven little man in a threadbare coat like a gaberdine, with his feet in slippers, and I thought him a harmless fool. 'I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there,' he said. 'And when they come back too?' I asked. "Oh, I never see them,'
he remarked; 'and, moreover, the changes take place in-side, you know.' He smiled, as if at some quiet joke.
'So you are going out there. Famous. Interesting too.'
He gave me a searching glance, and made another note.
'Ever any madness in your family?' he asked, in a matter-of-fact tone. I felt very annoyed. 'Is that question in the interests of science too?' 'It would be,'
he said, without taking notice of my irritation, 'interest-ing for science to watch the mental changes of individ-uals, on the spot, but . . .' 'Are you an alienist?' Iinterrupted. 'Every doctor should be--a little,' an-swered that original, imperturbably. 'I have a little theory which you Messieurs who go out there must help me to prove. This is my share in the advantages my country shall reap from the possession of such a mag-nificent dependency. The mere wealth I leave to others.
Pardon my questions, but you are the first Englishman coming under my observation. . . .' I hastened to assure him I was not in the least typical. 'If I were,'
said I, 'I wouldn't be talking like this with you.' 'What you say is rather profound, and probably erroneous,' he said, with a laugh. 'Avoid irritation more than expos-ure to the sun. Adieu. How do you English say, eh?
Good-by. Ah! Good-by. Adieu. In the tropics one must before everything keep calm.' . . . He lifted a warning forefinger. . . . 'Du calme, du calme.
Adieu.'
"One thing more remained to do--say good-by to my excellent aunt. I found her triumphant. I had a cup of tea--the last decent cup of tea for many days --and in a room that most soothingly looked just as you would expect a lady's drawing-room to look, we had a long quiet chat by the fireside. In the course of these confidences it became quite plain to me I had been repre-sented to the wife of the high dignitary, and goodness knows to how many more people besides, as an excep-tional and gifted creature--a piece of good fortune for the Company--a man you don't get hold of every day.
Good heavens! and I was going to take charge of a two-penny-halfpenny river-steamboat with a penny whistle attached! It appeared, however, I was also one of the Workers, with a capital--you know. Something like an emissary of light, something like a lower sort of apostle. There had been a lot of such rot let loose in print and talk just about that time, and the excellent woman, living right in the rush of all that humbug, got carried off her feet. She talked about 'weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways,' till, upon my word, she made me quite uncomfortable. I ventured to hint that the Company was run for profit.
"'You forget, dear Charlie, that the laborer is worthy of his hire,' she said, brightly. It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of cre-ation would start up and knock the whole thing over.
"After this I got embraced, told to wear flannel, be sure to write often, and so on--and I left. In the street --I don't know why--a queer feeling came to me that Iwas an impostor. Odd thing that I, who used to clear out for any part of the world at twenty-four hours'
notice, with less thought than most men give to the cross-ing of a street, had a moment--I won't say of hesitation, but of startled pause, before this commonplace affair.
The best way I can explain it to you is by saying that, for a second or two, I felt as though, instead of going to the center of a continent, I were about to set off for the center of the earth.
"I left in a French steamer, and she called in every blamed port they have out there, for, as far as I could see, the sole purpose of landing soldiers and custom-house officers. I watched the coast. Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma.