What fun to be a man and have a
career! In my more exalted moments it is sometimes borne in on me that
I should have been a man and a diplomatist. I feel, though I admit
with no grounds to speak of, that I might have been a great success in
that most interesting profession. One never knows, and by putting my
foot in it very conscientiously all round, I might have earned for
myself a reputation of Machiavellian cunning!
What do you think I met at dinner last night? A Travelling Radical
Member of Parliament!
Of course I had read of them--often--and knew exactly what sort of
creatures they are--fearful wild fowl who come to India for six
weeks--
"Comprehend in half a mo'
What it takes a man ten years or so
To know that he will never know,"
tell the native they want to be a brother to him, and go home to write
a book about the way India is misgoverned.
I was delighted at the prospect of seeing one quite close at hand. I
pictured a strong still man with a beard, soft fat hands, and a sob
in his voice that, at election times, would touch the great, deep
throbbing Heart of the People. Instead, I beheld a small, thin man,
with eyes as tired as any of the poor sun-dried bureaucrats, and a
wide mouth with a humorous twitch at the corners; a man one couldn't
imagine wanting to touch anything so silly as the Heart of the People.
He talked, I noticed, very little during dinner, but the men were
unusually long in joining us afterwards, and as Boggley clambered
after me into the _tikka-gharry_ that was to take us home: "That's a
ripping fellow!" said Boggley.
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