‘Can you do it?’ he said drowsily.  ‘I didn’t mean to bring you over.’

‘About what?  I’ve been dining at the Martyns’.’

’The famine, of course, Martyn’s warned for it, too.  They’re taking men where they can find ’em.  I sent a note to you at the Club just now, asking if you could do us a letter once a week from the south—­between two and three columns, say.  Nothing sensational, of course, but just plain facts about who is doing what, and so forth.  Our regular rates—­ten rupees a column.’

‘Sorry, but it’s out of my line,’ Scott answered, staring absently at the map of India on the wall.  ’It’s rough on Martyn—­very.  Wonder what he’ll do with his sister.  Wonder what the deuce they’ll do with me?  I’ve no famine experience.  This is the first I’ve heard of it. Am I ordered?’

‘Oh, yes.  Here’s the wire.  They’ll put you on relief-works,’ Raines went on, ’with a horde of Madrassis dying like flies; one native apothecary and half a pint of cholera-mixture among the ten thousand of you.  It comes of your being idle for the moment.  Every man who isn’t doing two men’s work seems to have been called upon.  Hawkins evidently believes in Punjabis.  It’s going to be quite as bad as anything they have had in the last ten years.’

’It’s all in the day’s work, worse luck.  I suppose I shall get my orders officially some time to morrow.  I’m glad I happened to drop in.  Better go and pack my kit now.  Who relieves me here—­do you know?’

Raines turned over a sheaf of telegrams.  ‘McEuan,’ said he, ’from Murree.’

Scott chuckled.  ’He thought he was going to be cool all summer.  He’ll be very sick about this.  Well, no good talking.  Night.’

Two hours later, Scott, with a clear conscience, laid himself down to rest on a string cot in a bare room.  Two worn bullock-trunks, a leather water-bottle, a tin ice-box, and his pet saddle sewed up in sacking were piled at the door, and the Club secretary’s receipt for last month’s bill was under his pillow.  His orders came next morning, and with them an unofficial telegram from Sir James Hawkins, who did not forget good men, bidding him report himself with all speed at some unpronounceable place fifteen hundred miles to the south, for the famine was sore in the land, and white men were needed.

A pink and fattish youth arrived in the red-hot noonday, whimpering a little at fate and famines, which never allowed any one three months’ peace.  He was Scott’s successor—­another cog in the machinery, moved forward behind his fellow, whose services, as the official announcement ran, ’were placed at the disposal of the Madras Government for famine duty until further orders.’  Scott handed over the funds in his charge, showed him the coolest corner in the office, warned him against excess of zeal, and, as twilight fell, departed from the Club in a hired carriage, with his faithful body servant, Faiz Ullah, and a mound of disordered baggage atop,