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“And this is India!” said Pagett for the twentieth time staring long and intently at the grey feathering of tbe tamarisks.

“One portion of India only. It’s very much like this for 300 miles in every direction. By the way, now that you have rested a little–I wouldn’t ask the old question before–what d’you think of the country?”

‘Tis the most pervasive country that ever yet was seen. I acquired several pounds of your country coming up from Karachi. The air is heavy with it, and for miles and miles along that distressful eternity of rail there’s no horizon to show where air and earth separate.”

“Yes. It isn’t easy to see truly or far in India. But you had a decent passage out, hadn’t you?”

“Very good on the whole. Your Anglo-Indian may be unsympathetic about one’s political views; but he has reduced ship life to a science.”

“The Anglo-Indian is a political orphan, and if he’s wise he won’t be in a hurry to be adopted by your party grandmothers. But how were your companions, unsympathetic?”

“Well, there was a man called Dawlishe, a judge somewhere in this country it seems, and a capital partner at whist by the way, and when I wanted to talk to him about the progress of India in a political sense (Orde hid a grin, which might or might not have been sympathetic), the National Congress movement, and other things in which, as a Member of Parliament, I’m of course interested, he shifted the subject, and when I once cornered him, he looked me calmly in the eye, and said: ‘That’s all Tommy rot. Come and have a game at Bull.’ You may laugh; but that isn’t the way to treat a great and important question; and, knowing who I was. well. I thought it rather rude, don’t you know; and yet Dawlishe is a thoroughly good fellow.”

“Yes; he’s a friend of mine, and one of the straightest men I know. I suppose, like many Anglo-Indians, he felt it was hopeless to give you any just idea of any Indian question without the documents before you, and in this case the documents you want are the country and the people.”

“Precisely. That was why I came straight to you, bringing an open mind to bear on things. I’m anxious to know what popular feeling in India is really like y’know, now that it has wakened into political life. The National Congress, in spite of Dawlishe, must have caused great excitement among the masses?”

“On the contrary, nothing could be more tranquil than the state of popular feeling; and as to excitement, the people would as soon be excited over the ‘Rule of Three’ as over the Congress.”

“Excuse me, Orde, but do you think you are a fair judge? Isn’t the official Anglo-Indian naturally jealous of any external influences that might move the masses, and so much opposed to liberal ideas, truly liberal ideas, that he can scarcely be expected to regard a popular movement with fairness?”

“What did Dawlishe say about Tommy Rot? Think a moment, old man. You and I were brought up together; taught by the same tutors, read the same books, lived the same life, and new languages, and work among new races; while you, more fortunate, remain at home. Why should I change my mind our mind-because I change my sky? Why should I and the few hundred Englishmen in my service become unreasonable, prejudiced fossils, while you and your newer friends alone remain bright and open-minded? You surely don’t fancy civilians are members of a Primrose League?”

“Of course not, but the mere position of an English official gives him a point of view which cannot but bias his mind on this question.” Pagett moved his knee up and down a little uneasily as he spoke.

“That sounds plausible enough, but, like more plausible notions on Indian matters, I believe it’s a mistake. You’ll find when you come to consult the unofficial Briton that our fault, as a class–I speak of the civilian now-is rather to magnify the progress that has been made toward liberal institutions. It is of English origin, such as it is, and the stress of our work since the Mutiny–only thirty years ago–has been in that direction. No, I think you will get no fairer or more dispassionate view of the Congress business than such men as I can give you. But I may as well say at once that those who know most of India, from the inside, are inclined to wonder at the noise our scarcely begun experiment makes in England.”