He may or may not be pleased at being ordered to write out
everything he knows for your benefit. This depends on his temperament. The
bigger man you are, the more information and the greater trouble can you raise.
Nafferton was not a big man; but he had the reputation of being very earnest."
An "earnest" man can do much with a Government. There was an earnest man who
once nearly wrecked . . . but all India knows THAT story. I am not sure what
real "earnestness" is. A very fair imitation can be manufactured by neglecting
to dress decently, by mooning about in a dreamy, misty sort of way, by taking
office-work home after staying in office till seven, and by receiving crowds of
native gentlemen on Sundays. That is one sort of "earnestness."
Nafferton cast about for a peg whereon to hang his earnestness, and for a
string that would communicate with Pinecoffin. He found both.
They were Pig. Nafferton became an earnest inquirer after Pig. He informed the
Government that he had a scheme whereby a very large percentage of the British
Army in India could be fed, at a very large saving, on Pig. Then he hinted that
Pinecoffin might supply him with the "varied information necessary to the
proper inception of the scheme.
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