for night telegrams. He had a theory that if a man did not stay by
his work all day and most of the night he laid himself open to fever;
so he ate and slept among his files.

'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