It is vexing enough to be doubted when one is
exaggerating; to have sneers flung at one by one's own kith and kin
when one is struggling to confine oneself to bald, bare narrative--
well, where is the inducement to be truthful? There are times when I
almost say to myself that I will never tell the truth again.
"As it happens," I said, "the story is true, in many places. I pass
over your indifference to the risk I ran; though a nice girl at the
point where the gun was mentioned would have expressed alarm.
Anyhow, at the end you might have said something more sympathetic
than merely, 'Tell us another.' He did not shoot the next party that
arrived, for the reason that the very next day his wife, alarmed at
what had happened, went up to London and consulted an expert--none
too soon, as it turned out. The poor old fellow died six months
later in a private lunatic asylum; I had it from the station-master
on passing through the junction again this spring. The house fell
into the possession of his nephew, who is living in it now. He is a
youngish man with a large family, and people have learnt that the
place is not for sale. It seems to me rather a sad story. The
Indian sun, as the station-master thinks, may have started the
trouble; but the end was undoubtedly hastened by the annoyance to
which the unfortunate gentleman had been subjected; and I myself
might have been shot. The only thing that comforts me is thinking of
that fool's black eye--the fool that sent me there.
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