I must confess the poisoning of Pyecraft struck me as an immense
undertaking.
That evening I took that queer, odd-scented sandalwood box out of my
safe and turned the rustling skins over. The gentleman who wrote the
recipes for my great-grandmother evidently had a weakness for skins of
a miscellaneous origin, and his handwriting was cramped to the last
degree. Some of the things are quite unreadable to me--though my family,
with its Indian Civil Service associations, has kept up a knowledge of
Hindustani from generation to generation--and none are absolutely plain
sailing. But I found the one that I knew was there soon enough, and sat
on the floor by my safe for some time looking at it.
“Look here,” said I to Pyecraft next day, and snatched the slip away
from his eager grasp.
“So far as I--can make it out, this is a recipe for Loss of Weight.
(“Ah!” said Pyecraft.) I'm not absolutely sure, but I think it's that.
And if you take my advice you'll leave it alone. Because, you know--I
blacken my blood in your interest, Pyecraft--my ancestors on that side
were, so far as I can gather, a jolly queer lot. See?”
“Let me try it,” said Pyecraft.
I leant back in my chair. My imagination made one mighty effort and
fell flat within me. “What in Heaven's name, Pyecraft,” I asked, “do you
think you'll look like when you get thin?”
He was impervious to reason. I made him promise never to say a word to
me about his disgusting fatness again whatever happened--never, and then
I handed him that little piece of skin.
“It's nasty stuff,” I said.
“No matter,” he said, and took it.
He goggled at it. “But--but--” he said.
He had just discovered that it wasn't English.
“To the best of my ability,” I said, “I will do you a translation.”
I did my best. After that we didn't speak for a fortnight. Whenever
he approached me I frowned and motioned him away, and he respected our
compact, but at the end of a fortnight he was as fat as ever. And then
he got a word in.
“I must speak,” he said. “It isn't fair. There's something wrong. It's
done me no good. You're not doing your great-grandmother justice.”
“Where's the recipe?”
He produced it gingerly from his pocket-book.