“My dear Robinson,” I said, “you must really forgive me, but these
affairs cannot be arranged like a transaction on ’Change.”
“She loves you,” said Robinson. “Her heart has gone out to you.”
“But, my dear fellow, love wants two hearts to beat as one.”
“Blessed if I know how anybody can help loving her,” said Robinson.
“You see, no man has the power to direct another’s feelings in the
matter,” I explained.
Then he made a most extraordinary remark.
“Well, it’s no good beating about the bush, Tarver, so I’ll be frank.
My sister wants to marry you; I want you to marry her and make her a
home----”
“And let you be free of her?” I interrupted hotly.
He felt the thrust and winced, but proceeded:
“I wish you to marry her. What is more, I insist upon it. You _shall_
marry her.”
I lack pluck as a rule, but a worm will turn at times. I said I would
be eternally lost if I did.
“Bad language won’t help you,” he continued quietly. “Listen and judge
for yourself if I threaten without power. You will recollect that I
did not leave Thibet until I came of age. For one-and-twenty years I
studied the wisdom of the land. Briefly, a Mahatma, whose pretensions
and learning it would be idle to question, took a fancy to me, and
imparted not a little of his knowledge on absurdly easy terms. I never
counted to employ it. Self-control, indeed, was the first great lesson
he taught me. But all information is useful. I wish you to marry my
sister. Will you or will you not?”
I thought he was merely trying to frighten me, so dared him to do his
worst. I purposely expressed myself with some severity.
“Don’t think I fear your tomfoolery,” I said. “If you’re a Mahatma, you
ought to be locked up with all the other wild beasts. That for you! You
won’t alarm me, I promise you!”
Here I snapped my thumb and finger under his nose.
Hardly were the words out of my mouth when Robinson, looking round to
see that nobody was within earshot, made use of a word of some twelve
syllables, which I had never heard before. A second afterwards I found
myself, to my horror, inside the bars of the Bengal tiger’s house.
This was not all. Looking round wildly, I observed that the tiger had
disappeared, and, on raising my voice to cry for help, a hideous roar
thundered through the building, but no human sound left my lips. Then I
realised what had happened. _I was the tiger!_ Robinson had transferred
my _ego_ into this brute beast. I, Thomas Tarver, found my immortal
soul shut up within the frame of the most savage monster an inscrutable
Providence ever designed. I looked out of its eyes; I strode here and
there; I lifted giant paws, and, raising myself on my hind legs, gazed
through my bars at Robinson. He was sitting where I had left him, and
there opposite, limp in its chair, looking more like a respectably
dressed Guy Fawkes than anything, reposed my mortal shell.
“For God’s sake come here!” I said; but only a tigerish whimper sounded
through the den. However, Robinson understood it and stepped to the bar.
“You do look a fool!” he remarked. Then he explained the fiendish thing
he had done.
“You see, a tiger doesn’t run a soul, Tarver, so I’ve just drawn yours
out of your wretched carcase and popped it into this creature. Now, for
all practical purposes you’re a Bengal tiger, and you’ll have to remain
one until you grow reasonable. I rather fancy you’ll be fed at four.”
If I could have got out at that moment, Mahatma or no Mahatma, Robinson
would have had a painful experience. I was, honestly, as angry as a man
or beast can be. I spoke hotly. I said things I should not have said
under any other conditions. Robinson understood me, but other visitors
saw nothing but a big tiger in a raging temper.
Presently my poor shell fell off its chair, and a crowd collected and
Robinson explained to the people that my heart was weak. Then I saw
myself carried away under the direction of the demon who had called
himself my friend. Nobody paid any attention to me myself. I was left
with nothing to do for twenty-four hours but reflect upon my position
and eat a piece of dead horse. Why I did not go mad I shall never
understand. Presently a tigress came out of the inner den, and I felt
myself trembling in every limb. She took little notice of me, but
finding I made no effort to eat my dinner, consumed it herself when my
back was turned. Heaven only knows what she thought had happened to me.
But she left me alone, for which I thanked her. I walked up and down
for long, weary hours; I tried to speak to the keepers; I impressed
several spectators with my hopeless appearance. The infant mind often
sees deeper than an adult intelligence, and a little girl it was who
read my anguish in my eyes.
“What a poor, dear, unhappy old tiger!” she said, and flung me a
currant bun.
“You little fool!” exclaimed her mother, “that was for the elephant.
Tigers don’t eat buns!”
But they do under some conditions. My tiger’s appetite was keen. I ate
that bun, and I even regretted the dead horse before closing time.
That night I found myself driven into a small sleeping-den--alone
I was thankful to see--and when silence fell I put my paws over my
head and tried to grasp the situation. Here was I--a reasonable human
soul--chained in this awful living prison. I might have been back in
Bengal too for all the use my fellow-creatures could be. Then a grey
rat hopped into my den. It came fearlessly up, cocked its whiskers and
spoke. Needless to say that this rat was Robinson, or rather Robinson’s
astral embodiment.
“Well,” he asked, “how do you find yourself? Variety is charming, eh?
But you’re a poor thing in tigers.”