{"product_id":"2940013761919","title":"The Hundred Days \u0026 The Woman Ayisha","description":"\"They said You Have a Tale for Me; and so, by Allah, I am Here to Listen.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey kept this out of the papers at the time, there being a\u003cbr\u003efine-meshed censorship in force. Enough months have elapsed\u003cbr\u003esince, and enough events have happened to smoke-screen this one\u003cbr\u003eas effectually as if Julius Caesar and the Gauls had played the\u003cbr\u003eleading parts. The Prince went home alive. India resumed worrying\u003cbr\u003eabout the price of homespun cotton, the next monsoon, and whether\u003cbr\u003erupee-paper was likely to rise or fall. The _Pioneer_ found\u003cbr\u003efront-page space for an account of spooks in a planter's bungalow.\u003cbr\u003eAnd all was well again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Set it down, why don't you?\" King said; and Grim nodded. I\u003cbr\u003edemurred. Either King or Grim could have told the story better.\u003cbr\u003eBut as they sat on the end of my bed in the little white-washed\u003cbr\u003eward, the one cleaning spurs and the other resplicing the\u003cbr\u003ewire-woven handle of a Persian scimitar, it was small use\u003cbr\u003earguing with them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKing's excuse, that he had sore fingers and could not punch a\u003cbr\u003etypewriter, was possibly half-valid. It was why he was cleaning\u003cbr\u003espurs, for instance, instead of playing polo to get fit for the\u003cbr\u003enext adventure Fate might hold in store for him. Grim's argument,\u003cbr\u003ethat he should not write the account because he had a hand in the\u003cbr\u003eaffair, was more ridiculous, but just as useful, since it cloaked\u003cbr\u003ehis incurable delight in doing lots and saying nothing, or,\u003cbr\u003erather, less than nothing. What he does say usually adds to\u003cbr\u003ehis obscurity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Write it, and omit me,\" Grim suggested. But you might as well\u003cbr\u003eomit Hamlet from the play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, here I am, with a month of convalescence still ahead\u003cbr\u003eof me, sore from head to foot, sick of reading, and still\u003cbr\u003emore sick of the Peshawar climate, hospital diet, the squeak\u003cbr\u003eof a punkah, and the view of Allah's Slagheap from the window.\u003cbr\u003eSo they've set a table for me in a corner where the flap of\u003cbr\u003ethe punkah won't scatter the paper all over the place. My\u003cbr\u003ejaw being bandaged, the sweat, in all likelihood, won't drop\u003cbr\u003edown and make the ink run.  Lord knows there's paper enough;\u003cbr\u003ethe genial sawbones who runs this outfit (between bouts of\u003cbr\u003epreaching to wounded border-thieves) seems to think I propose\u003cbr\u003eto rewrite the Encyclopaedia--or one of his sermons. He has\u003cbr\u003elent me his dictionary and a big jar of tobacco. Here begins:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJoan Angela came to India. That's the prelude to anything\u003cbr\u003ewhatever except common-place. I believe she is twenty-six. I will\u003cbr\u003ebet she has twenty-six hundred admirers, including me, who would\u003cbr\u003elike to act Herod and kill off eligibles in order to destroy\u003cbr\u003ebeforehand the inevitable lucky, but as yet unknown, blade who\u003cbr\u003ewill some day persuade her to marry. And I daresay twenty-six\u003cbr\u003emillion dollars would look rather small beside her fortune\u003cbr\u003esince they brought in oil on her land in California. (Not that\u003cbr\u003ethat matters; she would be Joan Angela Leich if she had only\u003cbr\u003etwenty-six cents.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe came because the Prince's visit was likely to prove spectacular,\u003cbr\u003eand when we're young most of us will go a long way to see a\u003cbr\u003ecircus. But it soon palled. The home papers got wind of it, too,\u003cbr\u003eand drew conclusions, the Prince being still a bachelor and\u003cbr\u003eabout her age. So she cut short the round of visits and started\u003cbr\u003eto see India for herself, without so much as a by-your-leave\u003cbr\u003eor a hint to the Indian Government, which was a great deal too\u003cbr\u003ebusy just then to notice much that wasn't obviously dangerous.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn times like that a Government falls back on odds and ends of\u003cbr\u003estray resources. Undesirables are given short shrift, with\u003cbr\u003eapologies in the proper quarter later on, if called for. Men\u003cbr\u003ewhose courses up and down the earth will bear investigation find\u003cbr\u003esurprising details forced on them, without much explanation and\u003cbr\u003eno insurance. You carry unexpected overloads at your own expense\u003cbr\u003eand risk, with no more prospect of reward than any decent fellow\u003cbr\u003egets who likes to know he did not grudge the gift of manliness\u003cbr\u003eand muscle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo Athelstan King, James Schuyler Grim and I--an Englishman and\u003cbr\u003etwo Americans--with Narayan Singh, who is a Sikh and was a sepoy\u003cbr\u003eonce, were under canvas by the left bank of Jumna River, swatting\u003cbr\u003eflies, smoking much more than was wholesome, and wishing the\u003cbr\u003ePrince were in London in the care of Scotland Yard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was a brigade of Indian Cavalry camped on our left hand,\u003cbr\u003eabout two miles away; we could hear the horses neighing, as bored\u003cbr\u003eas we felt. On our right, two miles away again, was a regiment of\u003cbr\u003eBombay Infantry.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47145829007600,"sku":"2940013761919","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013761919_p0.jpg?v=1763589893","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013761919","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}