Page:Quartette - Kipling (1885).djvu/123

 (Aside: I suspect he will relish his breakfast more than a tract; but it is my duty to do the best I can for him).—Here is a very nice one on Temperance about a little boy who took the pledge at six years old, and kept it till he died of consumption at fifteen, and I hope you will try to give over drinking and being wicked.

(a little more boldly and in a more natural voice).—Well, in my case the devil is scarcely so black as he's painted, or as he painted himself.

(startled).—I don't understand you.

—The fact is, Miss Bulthrop, there was no bunnia beaten and no constable knocked down; and, in short(Takes off beard and red wig with a rapid movement.) Don't you know me, Edith?

(impulsively starts forward.—O Frank! You here!).

(kissing her).—Yes, dear, the same old Frank; and the same dear Edith.

(disengaging herself).—But how did you come? When did you leave England? Where are you stationed? And why are you in this disguise?

-I was posted at a day's notice to a Battery at Meean Meer. Your aunt told me how angry your father had been with all the good soul had told him about us, and she assured me that he would never consent to let me see you; and it seemed such awfully hard lines to be so near and not to know whether you still cherished any of the old feeling, that I invented a little stratagem, took four days' leave, and here I am.

—My prisoner! But, O Frank! it's very wrong, and I ought not to have kissed you just now. (Slily.)

—Certainly not; it was I who ought to have kissed you—so! There, that's all right. (Kisses her.)

—You may take papa in by your device, but how did you take in the police?

—In this country, Edith, the police are not taken in; they are bought. Nubbee Baksh was formerly a havildár of mine, but he was quite too awfully clever for the regular line, so he joined the police; and I arranged this little matter with him. And to-night I escape; the bunnia will be found to have lied like a—like a—well, like a bunnia, and I shall go joyfully