All marriages should be
made through the Department, which might be subordinate to the Educational
Department, under the same penalty as that attaching to the transfer of land
without a stamped document. But Government won't take suggestions. It pretends
that it is too busy. However, I will put my notion on record, and explain the
example that illustrates the theory.
Once upon a time there was a good young man--a first-class officer in his own
Department--a man with a career before him and, possibly, a K. C. G. E. at the
end of it. All his superiors spoke well of him, because he knew how to hold
his tongue and his pen at the proper times. There are today only eleven men in
India who possess this secret; and they have all, with one exception, attained
great honor and enormous incomes.
This good young man was quiet and self-contained--too old for his years by
far. Which always carries its own punishment. Had a Subaltern, or a Tea-
Planter's Assistant, or anybody who enjoys life and has no care for tomorrow,
done what he tried to do not a soul would have cared. But when Peythroppe--the
estimable, virtuous, economical, quiet, hard-working, young Peythroppe--fell,
there was a flutter through five Departments.
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