How the Worm TURNED.

Clutha Leader, Volume XX, Issue 1038, 15 June 1894, Page 7

How the Worm TURNED.

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 subaltern from home, with his buttons hardly out of their tissue paper, and the red of sappy English beef in his cheeks. This is the story of the worm that turned. For thr sake of brevity, ■we will call Henry Augustus Ramsey Fiazanne ' The Worm,' although he was really an exceedingly pretty hoy, without a haii on his face, and with a waist like a girl's, when he came out to the second ' Shikarris ' and was made unhappy in several ways. The ' Shikarris 1 are a high-caste regiment, and you must be able to do things well — play a banjo, or ride more than little, or sing, or not — to get on with them. The Worm did nothing except fall off his pony and knock chips out of gate posts with his trap. Even that became monotonous after a time. He objected to -whist, cut the cloth at billiards, sung out of tune, kept very much to himself, and wrote to his ! mamma and sisters at Home. Four of ■ these five things were vices which the Shikarris objected to, and set themselves to eradicate. Everyone knows how subalterns are, by brother subalterns, softened and not. permitted to be ferocious. It is good and wholesome, and does no one any harm unless tempers are lost, and then there is trouble. There was a man onee — bus that is another story. The Shikarris ' shikarred ' The Worm very much, and he bore everything without winking. He was so good and so anxious to learn, and flushed so pink, tiiat his education was cut short, and he was left to his own devices by everyone except the senior subaltern, who continued to make life a burden to The "Worm. The senior subaltern meant no harm, but the chaff was coarse, and he didn't quite understand where to stop. He had been waiting too long for his company, and that always sours a man. Also he was in love, which made him worsa One day after he had borrowed Tho Worm's trap for a lady who had never existed, had used it himself all the afternoon, had sent a note to The Worm, purporting to come from the lady, and was telling the. mess all about it, The Worm rose in his place and said in his quiet lady-like voice : 'That was a very pretty sell, but I'll lay you a month's pay to a month's pay when you get your step that I work a sell on you that you'll remember for the rest of your days, and the regiment after you when you're dead or broke.' The Worm wasn't angry in the least, and the rest of the mess shouted. Th°.n the senior subaltern looked at The Worm from his boots upwards, and clown again, and said — 1 Done, baby,' The worm took the rest of the mess to witness that the bet had been taken, and retired into a book with a sweet smile. Two months passed, and the senior subaltern still educated The Worm who began to move about a little more as the hot weather came on. I have said that the senior subaltern was in love. The curious thing is that the girl was in love with him. Though the colonel saw awful things, and the majors sported, and married captains looked unutterable wisdom, and the juniors scofted, these two were engaged. The senior subaltern was so pleased with getting his company and his acceptance at the same time that he forgot to bother The Worm. The girl was a pretty girl, md had money of her own. She does not come into this story at all. One night, at the beginning of the hot weather, all the mess, except The Worm, who had gone to his own room to write home letters, were sitting on the platform outside the mess-house. The band had finished playing, but no one wanted to go in. And the captains' wives wore, there aUo. The folly of a man in love is unlimited. The senior subaltern had been holding forth on the merits of the girl he was engaged to, and the ladies were purring approval, while the men yawned, when there was a rustle of skirts in the dark, and a tired, faint voice lifted itself. ' Where's my husband V Then the voice cried, ' Oh, Lionel !' Lionel was the senior subaltern's name. A woman came into the little, circle of light by the candles on the peg-tables, stretching out her hands to the dark where the senior subaltern was, and sobbing. We rose to our feet, feeling that things were going|to happen, and ready to believe the worst. In this bad, smail world of ours one knows so little of the life of the next man — which, after all, is entirely his own concern— that one is not surprised when a crash comes. Anything might turn up any day for anyone. Perhaps the senior subaltern had been trapped in his youth. Men are .crippled that way occasionally. We didn't know ; we wanted to hear, and the captains' wives were as anxious as we. If he had been trapped he was to he excused ; for the woman from nowhere, in the dusty shoes and grey travelling dress, was very lovely, with black hair and great eyes full of tears.

She was tall, with a fine figure, and her voice had a running sob in it pitiful to hear As soon as the senior subaltern stood up she threw her arms round his neck, and called him ' my darling,' and said she could not bear waiting alone in England, and his letters were so short and cold, and she was his to tho end of the world, and would he forgive her 1 ? This did not sound quite like a lady's way of speaking. It was too demonstrative. Things seemed black indeed, and the captains' wives peered under their eyebrows at the senior subaltern, and the colonel's face set like the day of judgment framed in grey bristles:, and no cne spoke for a while. Next the colonel said, very shortly — < Well, sir V The woman sobbed afresh. The senior subaltern was half choked with the arms round his neck, but he gasped out — j ' It's a lie ! I never had a wife in my life.' ' Don't get excited,' said the colonel. ' Come into the mess. We must sift this clear somehow,' and he sighed to himself, for he believed in his Shikarris, did the colonel. We trooped into the ante-room, under the. full lights, and here we saw how beautiful the woman was. She stood up in the middle of us all, sometimes choking with crying, then hard and proud, and then holding out her arms to the senior subaltern.' It was like the fourth act of a tragedy. She told us how the senior subaltern had married her when he was at Home on leave. 18 months before ; and sheseemed to know all that we knew, and more too, of his people and his past life. He was white and ashy-grey, trying now and again to break into the torrent of her words ; and we, noting how lovely she was and what a criminal he looked, esteemed him a beast of. the worst kind. We felt sorry for him though. I shall never forget the indictment of the senior subaltern by his wife. Nor will he. It was so sudden, rushing out of the dark, unannounced, into our dull live?. The captains' wives stood back ; but their eyes were alight, and you could see that they had already convicted and sentenced the senior suhalUrn. The colonel seemed five years oldor. One major was shading his eyes with his hand and watching the woman from underneath. Another was chewing his moustache and smilivig quietly as if he were witnessing a play. Ire mem bo r all this as clearly as though a photograph were in my hand. I remember the look of terror on the senior subaltern's face. It was rather Hke seeing a man hanged ; but much more interesting. Finally, the woman wound up by saying that the senior subaltern carried a double F.M. in tattoo on his left shoulder. We all knew that, and to our innocent minds it seemed to clinch the matter. But one of the bachelor majors said very politely — ' I presume that your marriage certificate would be more to the purpose.' That roused the woman. She stood up and sneered at the senior subaltern for a cur, and abused tli3 major and the colonel and all the rest. Then she wept, and then she pulled a paper from her breast, saying imperially — 'Take that ! and let my husband — my lawfully wedded husband — read it aloud — if he dare !' There was a hush, and the men looked into each other's eyes as the senior subaltern came forward in a dazed and dizzy way, and took the paper. We were wondering, as we stared, whether there was anything against any one of us that might turn up later on. The senior subaltern's throat was dry ; but as he ran his eye over the paper, he broke out into a hoarse cackle of relief, and said to the woman — ' You young blackguard !' But the woman had fled through a door, and on the paper was written — ' This is to certify that I, the Worm, have paid in full my debts to the senior subaltern, and, further, that the senior subaltern is my debtor, by agreement on the 23rd of February, as by the mess attested, to the extent of one I month's captain's pay, in the lawful currency of the Indian Empire.' Then a deputation set off for The. Worm's quarters, and found him betwixt and between unlacing his stays, with the hat, wig, serge dress, etc., on the bed. He came over as he was, and the Shikarris shouted till the gunners' mess sent over to know if they might ' have a share, of the fun. I think we were all, except the colonel and the senior subaltern, a little disappointed that the scandal had come to nothing. But that is human nature. There could be no two words about The Worm's acting. It leaned as near to a nasty tragedy as anything this side of a joke can. When most of the subalterns sat upon him with sofa cushions to find out why he had not said that acting was his strong point, he answered very quietly — 1 1 don't think you ever asked me. I 'jsed to act at home with my sisters.' But no acting with girls could account for The Worm's display that night. Personally, ] think it was in bad taste, besides being dangerous. There is no sort of use in playing with fire, even for fun. The Shikarris made him president o£ the Regimental Dramatic Club j and

when the senior subaltern paid up his debt, which he did at once, The Worm sunk the money in scenery and dresses. He was a good Worm, and the Shikarris are proud of him. The only drawback is that he has been christened * Mrs Senior Subaltern *; and as there are now two Mrs Senior Subal terns in the station that is sometimes confusing to strangers.