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
To-day.
_--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. This is the story of the worm that turned. For the
sake of brevity, we will call Henry Augustus Ramsay Faizanne, "The Worm,"
although he really was an exceedingly pretty boy, without a hair 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.
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