WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR
for night telegrams. He had a theory that if a man did not stay by his work all day and most of the night he laid himself open to fever: so he ate and slept among his files.
"Can you do it?" he said drowsily. "I did n't mean to bring you over."
"About what? I 've been dining at the Martyns'."
"The Madras famine, of course. Martyn 's warned, too. They 're taking men where they can find 'em. I sent a note to you at the Club just now, asking if you could do us a letter once a week from the south—between two and three columns, say. Nothing sensational, of course, but just plain facts about who is doing what, and so forth. Our regular rates—ten rupees a column."
"’Sorry, but it 's out of my line," Scott answered, staring absently at the map of India on the wall. "It 's rough on Martyn—very. 'Wonder what he 'll do with his sister? 'Wonder what the deuce they 'll do with me? I 've no famine experience. This is the first I 've heard of it. Am I ordered?"
"Oh, yes. Here 's the wire. They 'll put you on to relief-works," Raines said, "with a horde of Madrassis dying like flies; one native apothecary and half a pint of cholera-mixture among the ten thousand of you. It comes of your being idle for the moment. Every man who is n't doing two men's work seems to have been called upon. Hawkins evidently believes in Punjabis. It 's going to be quite as bad as anything they have had in the last ten years."
"It 's all in the day's work, worse luck. I suppose
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