Two days had passed, after his return to Picotee, before Dr Koomadhi
found time to call at the Residency. He found Major Minton lying on the
cane settee in a condition of perspiration and exhaustion.
“I’m sure Dr Koomadhi will bear me out in what I say,” said Mrs Minton,
as the Doctor entered the room. “I’ve been lecturing my husband upon the
danger of taking such violent exercise as he has been indulging in,” she
continued. “Just look at the state that he is in, Doctor. The idea of
any sane man on a day like this entering into a climbing contest with a
monkey!”
“Great heavens! Is that what he has been about--and the thermometer
nearer a hundred than ninety?” cried the Doctor.
“I admit that I was an ass,” muttered the Major. “But somehow I felt
that I should show Jacco that I could lick him on his own ground,--not
exactly his ground--we were never on the ground.”
“And when I went out I found them swinging on the topmost bough of
one of the trees,” said Mrs Minton. “Upon my word, my father will feel
scandalised. Such a thing never occurred at the Residency before.”
“Apart from the social aspect of the incident, I am bound to say that it
was most indiscreet,” said Dr Koomadhi. “Nothing precipitates sunstroke
like over-exertion in a high temperature. Major, this must not occur
again.”
“All right: don’t make a fuss, or you’ll soon be as hot as I am,” said
the Major, rising with difficulty and crossing the room--he was bent
almost double--to his wife’s tea-table.
“Hallo,” said the Doctor, “what have you been doing to yourself?”
“It is not what I have been doing but what I’ve left undone that you
notice,” laughed the Major. “The fact is that I couldn’t be bothered
shaving for the last few mornings. That’s what you notice.”
That was precisely what the Doctor did notice. He noticed the tossed
hair of the Major’s head and such bristles of a beard and whiskers as
had completely altered the appearance of his face. He also noticed that
when Mrs Minton turned away for a moment her husband deftly abstracted
two lumps of sugar from the bowl and began eating them surreptitiously.
“No nuts,” he heard him mutter contemptuously some time afterwards.
“Nuts?” said Mrs Minton. “You’ll ruin your digestion if you eat any more
nuts, Dick. Dr Koomadhi, will you join your voice with mine in protest
against this foolish boy’s fancy for nuts? You speak with the recognised
authority of a medical man. I can only speak as a wife, and I am not so
foolish as to fancy that that constitutes any claim to attention. If you
continue rubbing your chest in that absurd way, Dick, you’ll certainly
make a raw.”
Dr Koomadhi did not fail to observe that the Major was rubbing his chest
with his bent-up fingers.
“I’m quite surprised at your imprudence,” said he, shaking his head.
“You told me some time ago that though you had been for seven years in
India, you never had a touch of fever, and you attributed this to the
attention you paid to your diet. Now you know as well as I do that if a
man requires to be careful in India, there is double reason for him to
be careful on the West Coast of Africa. How can you so disregard the
most elementary laws of health?”
Major Minton laughed.
“There’s nothing like exercise,” he said, “and the best of all exercise
is climbing. Why, my dear Koomadhi, haven’t the greatest intellects
of the age taken to climbing? Wasn’t Tyndall a splendid mountaineer? I
don’t profess to be superior to Tyndall. Now, as I can’t get mountains
to climb in this neighbourhood I take naturally to the trees. I think
sometimes I could pass the rest of my life pleasantly enough here.
Man wants but little here below. Give me a branch to swing on, a green
cocoa-nut, and a friend who won’t resent a practical joke--I want
nothing more. By the way, it’s odd that I never saw until lately--in
fact, until two days ago--what good fun there is in a practical joke.”
“His perception of what he calls good fun deprived me of my brushes and
comb this morning,” said Mrs Minton. “I must confess I fail to see the
humour in hiding one’s brushes and comb.”
“It was the most innocent lark in the world, and you had no reason to
be so put out about it,” said her husband, leaning over the back of her
chair. Dr Koomadhi saw that he was tying the sash of her loose gown to
the wickerwork of the table at which she was sitting, so that she could
not rise without overturning the tray with the cups.
“My dear Major,” said the Doctor, “a jest is a jest, but your wife’s
china----”
“Oh, you have given me away; but I’ll be equal to you, never fear,” said
the Major, shambling off as his wife prepared to loose the knot of her
sash from the table.
She did not speak a word, but her face was flushed, and it was plain
that she was greatly annoyed. The flush upon her face deepened when her
husband went out to the verandah and uttered a curious guttural cry.
“How has he learned that?” asked Dr Koomadhi.
“Learned what?” asked Mrs Minton.
“That cry.”
“Oh, it’s some of his foolishness.”
“I daresay; but----”
“Ah, I thought I could bring you here, my friend,” cried the Major, as
Jacco the baboon swung off his usual place over the porch into his arms.
Dr Koomadhi watched the creature run its fingers through the Major’s
disordered hair. He heard the guttural sound made by the baboon, and he
heard it responded to by the Major.
He found that Major Minton was on a level with himself in his
acquaintance with the simian language.
He rose and took leave of Mrs Minton, and then, with a word of warning
in regard to his imprudent exercises, of the Major, left the Residency.
It was not until he had reached his own house that he discovered that
upon the back of his spotless linen coat there had been executed in
ink the grinning face of a clown. He recollected that he had seen Major
Minton toying with a quill pen behind him as he sat drinking tea.