“Then don’t make the same mistake as the Irish private’s wife at Madras.”
“What was that?” I said.
“It is an old story that you may not have heard. She was on shipboard, and eagerly listening to an old sergeant’s wife who had been there before; and this woman told her that one of the great troubles of the country was the mosquito. ‘An’ what’s a moskayto?’ said the Irishwoman. ‘Oh, a horrid creature with a long trunk, and it plunges it into you, and sucks your blood.’ At last they reached the coast, and the young Irishwoman was eagerly watching the shore with its troops of turbaned natives, palanquins, and mounted men, till suddenly a train of elephants came in sight, steadily nodding their heads and waving their trunks. The young Irishwoman drew a long deep breath, and looked as if she would never see home again, and the old sergeant’s wife asked her what was the matter. ‘Oh,’ she said, in a hoarse whisper, ‘is thim moskaytoes?’”
Captain Brace appeared so different as he told me this little old anecdote, that I felt as if I should like him after all; but the light died out of his face again, and he looked at me in a troubled way, as if vexed with himself for having been so frivolous.
“How long have you been back home?” I said, so as to keep up the conversation, for it was miserable to sit there in the silence.
“Six months,” he said gravely.
“That’s a good long holiday,” I said merrily.
“Holiday, boy?” he cried, in so wild and passionate a tone that I was startled, and looked at him wonderingly as he turned away.
“I—I beg your pardon,” I said apologetically. “I’m afraid I have blurted out something which I ought not to have said.”
“Never mind—never mind,” he said, with his head averted; “of course you could not know.”