Suddhoo is an old dotard; and whenever we meet mumbles my idiotic joke
that the Sirkar rather patronizes the Black Art than otherwise. His son is
well now; but Suddhoo is completely under the influence of the seal-cutter, by
whose advice he regulates the affairs of his life. Janoo watches daily the
money that she hoped to wheedle out of Suddhoo taken by the seal-cutter, and
becomes daily more furious and sullen.
She will never tell, because she dare not; but, unless something happens to
prevent her, I am afraid that the seal-cutter will die of cholera--the white
arsenic kind--about the middle of May. And thus I shall have to be privy to a
murder in the House of Suddhoo.
HIS WEDDED WIFE.
Cry "Murder!" in the market-place, and each
Will turn upon his neighbor anxious eyes
That ask:--"Art thou the man?"
We hunted Cain,
Some centuries ago, across the world,
That bred the fear our own misdeeds maintain
Today.
--Vibart's Moralities.
Shakespeare says something about worms, or it may be giants or beetles,
turning if you tread on them too severely. The safest plan is never to tread
on a worm--not even on the last new subaltern from Home, with his buttons
hardly out of their tissue paper, and the red of sappy English beef in his
cheeks.
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