Page:The Days Work (1899).djvu/216

 "What are you doing here?" said the policeman.

"I'm lent to the Madras Government, same as you. By Jove, it 's a bender of a night! Are you taking any of your men down?"

"A dozen. I suppose I shall have to superintend relief distributions. 'Did n't know you were under orders too."

"I did n't till after I left you last night. Raines had the news first. My orders came this morning. McEuan relieved me at four, and I got off at once. 'Should n't wonder if it would n't be a good thing—this famine—if we come through it alive."

"Jimmy ought to put you and me to work together," said Martyn; and then, after a pause: "My sister 's here."

"Good business," said Scott, heartily. "Going to get off at Umballa, I suppose, and go up to Simla. Who 'll she stay with there?"

"No-o; that 's just the trouble of it. She 's going down with me."

Scott sat bolt upright under the oil lamps as the train jolted past Tarn-Taran.

"What! You don't mean you could n't afford—"

"Tain't that. I 'd have scraped up the money somehow."

"You might have come to me, to begin with," said Scott, stiffly; "we are n't altogether strangers."

"Well, you need n't be stuffy about it. I might, but—you don't know my sister. I ' ve been explaining and exhorting and all the rest of it all day—lost my temper since seven this morning, and have n't got it back