The Legal Member
said to Tods: "Is that all?"
"All I can remember," said Tods. "But you should see Ditta Mull's big monkey.
It's just like a Councillor Sahib."
"Tods! Go to bed," said his father.
Tods gathered up his dressing-gown tail and departed.
The Legal Member brought his hand down on the table with a crash--"By Jove!"
said the Legal Member, "I believe the boy is right. The short tenure IS the
weak point."
He left early, thinking over what Tods had said. Now, it was obviously
impossible for the Legal Member to play with a bunnia's monkey, by way of
getting understanding; but he did better. He made inquiries, always bearing in
mind the fact that the real native--not the hybrid, University-trained mule--is
as timid as a colt, and, little by little, he coaxed some of the men whom the
measure concerned most intimately to give in their views, which squared very
closely with Tods' evidence.
So the Bill was amended in that clause; and the Legal Member was filled with an
uneasy suspicion that Native Members represent very little except the Orders
they carry on their bosoms. But he put the thought from him as illiberal. He
was a most Liberal Man.
After a time the news spread through the bazars that Tods had got the Bill
recast in the tenure clause, and if Tods' Mamma had not interfered, Tods would
have made himself sick on the baskets of fruit and pistachio nuts and Cabuli
grapes and almonds that crowded the verandah.
Pages:
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739