‘You take a pill,’ said Spurstow, who had been watching Hummil’s white face narrowly.  ’Take a pill, and don’t be an ass.  That sort of talk is skittles.  Anyhow, suicide is shirking your work.  If I were Job ten times over, I should be so interested in what was going to happen next that I’d stay on and watch.’

‘Ah!  I’ve lost that curiosity,’ said Hummil.

‘Liver out of order?’ said Lowndes feelingly.

‘No.  Can’t sleep.  That’s worse.’

‘By Jove, it is!’ said Mottram.  ’I’m that way every now and then, and the fit has to wear itself out.  What do you take for it?’

‘Nothing.  What’s the use?  I haven’t had ten minutes’ sleep since Friday morning.’

‘Poor chap!  Spurstow, you ought to attend to this,’ said Mottram.  ’Now you mention it, your eyes are rather gummy and swollen.’

Spurstow, still watching Hummil, laughed lightly.  ’I’ll patch him up, later on.  Is it too hot, do you think, to go for a ride?’

‘Where to?’ said Lowndes wearily.  ’We shall have to go away at eight, and there’ll be riding enough for us then.  I hate a horse, when I have to use him as a necessity.  Oh, heavens! what is there to do?’

‘Begin whist again, at chick points [’a chick’ is supposed to be eight shillings] and a gold mohur on the rub,’ said Spurstow promptly.

’Poker.  A month’s pay all round for the pool,—­no limit,—­and fifty-rupee raises.  Somebody would be broken before we got up,’ said Lowndes.

’Can’t say that it would give me any pleasure to break any man in this company,’ said Mottram.  ’There isn’t enough excitement in it, and it’s foolish.’  He crossed over to the worn and battered little camp-piano,—­ wreckage of a married household that had once held the bungalow,—­and opened the case.

‘It’s used up long ago,’ said Hummil.  ’The servants have picked it to pieces.’

The piano was indeed hopelessly out of order, but Mottram managed to bring the rebellious notes into a sort of agreement, and there rose from the ragged keyboard something that might once have been the ghost of a popular music-hall song.  The men in the long chairs turned with evident interest as Mottram banged the more lustily.

‘That’s good!’ said Lowndes.  ’By Jove! the last time I heard that song was in ‘79, or thereabouts, just before I came out.’

‘Ah!’ said Spurstow with pride,’ I was home in ‘80.’  And he mentioned a song of the streets popular at that date.

Mottram executed it roughly.  Lowndes criticised and volunteered emendations.  Mottram dashed into another ditty, not of the music-hall character, and made as if to rise.

‘Sit down,’ said Hummil.  ’I didn’t know that you had any music in your composition.  Go on playing until you can’t think of anything more.  I’ll have that piano tuned up before you come again.  Play something festive.’