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“Severity, yes-but whether it would be fitting is doubtful. Even those poor devils have rights, and, after all, they only practice what they have been taught.”

“But criminals, Ordel”

“Yes, criminals with codes and rituals of crime, gods and godlings of crime, and a hundred songs and sayings in praise of it. Puzzling, isn’t it?”

“It’s simply dreadful. They ought to be put down at once. Are there many of them?”

“Not more than about sixty thousand in this province, for many of the trlbes broadly described as criminal are really vagabond and crimlnal only on occasion, while others are being settled and reclaimed. They are of great antiquity, a legacy from the past, the golden, glorious Aryan past of Max Muller, Birdwood and the rest of your spindrift philosophers.”

An orderly brought a card to Orde who took it with a movement of irritation at the interruption, and banded it to Pagett; a large card with a ruled border in red ink, and in the centre in schoolboy copper plate, Mr. Dma Nath. “Give salaam,” said the civilian, and there entered in haste a slender youth, clad in a closely fitting coat of grey homespun, tight trousers, patent-leather shoes, and a small black velvet cap. His thin cheek twitched, and his eyes wandered restlessly, for the young man was evidently nervous and uncomfortable, though striving to assume a free and easy air.

“Your honor may perhaps remember me,” he said in Englisb, and Orde scanned him keenly.

“I know your face somehow. You belonged to the Shershah district I think, when I was in charge there?”

“Yes, Sir, my father is writer at Shershah, and your honor gave me a prize when I was first in the Middle School examination five years ago. Since then I have prosecuted my studies, and I am now second year’s student in the Mission College.”

“Of course: you are Kedar Nath’s son -the boy who said he liked geography better than play or sugar cakes, and I didn’t believe you. How is your father getting on?”

“He is well, and he sends his salaam, but his circumstances are depressed, and be also is down on his luck.”

“You learn English idiom”. at the Mission College, it seems.”

“Yes, sir, they are the best idioms, and my father ordered me to ask your honor to say a word for him to the present incumbent of your honor’s shoes, the latchet of which he is not worthy to open, and who knows not Joseph; for things are different at Sher shah now, and my father wants promotion.”

“Your father is a good man, and I will do what I can for him.”

At this point a telegram was handed to Orde, who, after glancing at it, said he must leave his young friend whom he introduced to Pagett, “a member of the English House of Commons who wishes to learn about India.”

Orde bad scarcely retired with his telegram when Pagett began:

“Perhaps you can tell me something of the National Congress movement?”

“Sir, it is the greatest movement of modern times, and one in which all edvcated men like us must join. All our students are for the Congress.”

“Excepting, I suppose, Mahommedans, and the Christians?” said Pagett, quick to use his recent instruction.

“These are some mere exceptions to the universal rule.”

“But the people outside the College, the working classes, the agriculturists; your father and mother, for instance.”

“My mother,” said the young man, with a visible effort to bring himself to pronounce the word, “has no ideas, and my father is not agriculturist, nor working class; he is of the Kayeth caste; but he had not the advantage of a collegiate education, and he does not know much of the Congress. It is a movement for the educated young-man” -connecting adjective and noun in a sort of vocal hyphen.

“Ah, yes,” said Pagett, feeling he was a little off the rails, “and what are the benefits you expect to gain by it?”