Two days had passed, after his return to Picotee, before Dr Koomadhi found time to call at the Residency. He found Major Minton lying on the cane settee in a condition of perspiration and exhaustion.
“I’m sure Dr Koomadhi will bear me out in what I say,” said Mrs Minton, as the Doctor entered the room. “I’ve been lecturing my husband upon the danger of taking such violent exercise as he has been indulging in,” she continued. “Just look at the state that he is in, Doctor. The idea of any sane man on a day like this entering into a climbing contest with a monkey!”
“Great heavens! Is that what he has been about—and the thermometer nearer a hundred than ninety?” cried the Doctor.
“I admit that I was an ass,” muttered the Major. “But somehow I felt that I should show Jacco that I could lick him on his own ground,—not exactly his ground—we were never on the ground.”
“And when I went out I found them swinging on the topmost bough of one of the trees,” said Mrs Minton. “Upon my word, my father will feel scandalised. Such a thing never occurred at the Residency before.”
“Apart from the social aspect of the incident, I am bound to say that it was most indiscreet,” said Dr Koomadhi. “Nothing precipitates sunstroke like over-exertion in a high temperature. Major, this must not occur again.”
“All right: don’t make a fuss, or you’ll soon be as hot as I am,” said the Major, rising with difficulty and crossing the room—he was bent almost double—to his wife’s tea-table.
“Hallo,” said the Doctor, “what have you been doing to yourself?”
“It is not what I have been doing but what I’ve left undone that you notice,” laughed the Major. “The fact is that I couldn’t be bothered shaving for the last few mornings. That’s what you notice.”
That was precisely what the Doctor did notice. He noticed the tossed hair of the Major’s head and such bristles of a beard and whiskers as had completely altered the appearance of his face. He also noticed that when Mrs Minton turned away for a moment her husband deftly abstracted two lumps of sugar from the bowl and began eating them surreptitiously.