weren't paupers?

DONE. Poor old pauper! What has become of the six hundred you rooked
from our table last month?

BLAYNE. It took unto itself wings. I think an enterprising tradesman got
some of it, and a shroff gobbled the rest--or else I spent it.

CURTISS. Gandy never had dealings with a shroff in his life.

DONE. Virtuous Gandy! If I had three thousand a month, paid from
England, I don't think I'd deal with a shroff either.

MACKESY. (Yawning.) Oh, it's a sweet life! I wonder whether matrimony
would make it sweeter.

CURTISS. Ask Cockley--with his wife dying by inches!

BLAYNE. Go home and get a fool of a girl to come out to--what is it
Thackeray says?-"the splendid palace of an Indian pro-consul."

DOONE. Which reminds me. My quarters leak like a sieve. I had fever last
night from sleeping in a swamp. And the worst of it is, one can't do
anything to a roof till the Rains are over.

CURTISS. What's wrong with you? You haven't eighty rotting Tommies to
take into a running stream.

DONE. No: but I'm mixed boils and bad language. I'm a regular Job all
over my body. It's sheer poverty of blood, and I don't see any chance of
getting richer--either way.

BLAYNE. Can't you take leave? DONE. That's the pull you Army men have
over us. Ten days are nothing in your sight. I'm so important that
Government can't find a substitute if I go away. Ye-es, I'd like to be
Gandy, whoever his wife may be.

CURTISS. You've passed the turn of life that Mackesy was speaking of.

DONE. Indeed I have, but I never yet had the brutality to ask a woman to
share my life out here.

BLAYNE. On my soul I believe you're right. I'm thinking of Mrs. Cockley.
The woman's an absolute wreck.

DONE. Exactly. Because she stays down here. The only way to keep her fit
would be to send her to the Hills for eight months--and the same with
any woman. I fancy I see myself taking a wife on those terms.

MACKESY. With the rupee at one and sixpence. The little Doones would be
little Debra Doones, with a fine Mussoorie chi-chi anent to bring home
for the holidays.

CURTISS. And a pair of be-ewtiful sambhur-horns for Done to wear, free
of expense, presented by--DONE. Yes, it's an enchanting prospect. By the
way, the rupee hasn't done falling yet. The time will come when we shall
think ourselves lucky if we only lose half our pay.

CURTISS. Surely a third's loss enough. Who gains by the arrangement?
That's what I want to know.

BLAYNE. The Sil