“What reason have they?” I calmly inquired, that is, outwardly calm, but inwardly very uncalm. Said he, “Really, I don’t know, and can’t say; you will have to ask them, and I think they are both very busy, as it is mail day.”
What a lot of lies mail day is responsible for! He then began to fumble his papers, as if to say that my time was up, so I bowed and left, feeling in my soul that he was a liar, and at the entrance door I inquired of a babu about the partners, and he said that they had not come to the office that day.
But why prolong the story? I made out a list of the firms on whom I had called. There were all sorts of excuses, but the majority objected to employing Eurasians. One thing astonished me, that so many of them had wicked partners. Perhaps they were only imaginary dummies or office devils, to whom they could attribute all their sins. And most of these men were Christians in their way.
One morning I found an article in one of the daily papers that fitted so well with what the boys had said and with what I felt, that I cut out this paragraph. I was rather glad that they had not seen the paper, as I had furnished them with tickets-of-leave; or they might have been tempted to curse their fathers, which is bad business when it can be avoided.
“There is a prejudice against the Eurasians, both among the Europeans and natives. It is not surprising that the heathen natives, with all their old feelings about caste, should prefer to have their own people about them, but not at all creditable that Europeans, all probably calling themselves Christians, should despise and degrade a people who are a part of themselves and begotten by them. It is said that a person always hates the one he has injured. As a Saxon, I have often thought of what I would have felt, if my father had made me an Eurasian. For some months, every morning, there passed my house, a fine well built man, clad in native clothes, going to his work at five rupees a month. I frequently conversed with him and found him quite intelligent. It appears that his father a Scotchman, years ago, on coming to India took up a native woman by whom he had several children. When his time for furlough came he gave the woman a few rupees and said, “Salaam.” He married a beautiful Scotch lassie, she no doubt believing him to be a chaste Christian gentleman—and returned to India. Other children were born, were well educated, and these young Scotch Macdonalds are in the service receiving one thousand to two thousand rupees a month, while the other poor devil of a Macdonald has to be content with his five rupees. I often thought as I saw the man, that if my father had played such a scurvy trick on me, I would have cursed him by daylight and by candle light, month by month, and year by year, up hill and down dale to my latest breath and before high heaven I think I would have been right in doing so.”
Thus ended my mercantile life. It was all confined to single entry, as I never had a chance of making a double entry to any of the houses. I visited the libraries but it was not worth while; being managed wholly by natives, what could be expected? the botanical garden and saw the great tree spreading out, as if it would protect and shelter everybody like the Indian Government, but very poor protection and shelter I found it, for during a storm that came on I had been better under a beggar’s thatch; then the Zoo with its monkeys, about as full of tricks as some of the mercantile men I had met, and the tigers not more merciful than many human animals; then to the Museum and to the Art School, where several hundred natives were being taught, but not an Eurasian! Poor devils! Why should the Government care for their education?
As I had failed in my main purpose, I endeavored to get all I could to pay for my trip. I got considerable mercantile experience, or rather experience of the mercantile character that has lasted me for life. I proved it to be true that experience is what a man gets after making a fool of himself a number of times, and as experience is about all we get in life, or take out of it, I tried to be satisfied.
One evening after returning from one of my trips and trying to analyze this antipathy, prejudice or hatred of the Europeans for the Eurasians I recalled this saying, “It is said that a person always hates the one he has injured.” I thought there may be a great deal of truth in this and further, the Europeans may look upon us as connected with themselves. We are constant, perpetual reminders of the lustful sins of themselves or their class. Even Lord Palmerston got to hating Punch for its continued pictures of himself with a straw in his mouth, and I have read that in a political campaign, caricatures have more power than argument. It may be the Eurasian pictures of themselves that the Europeans do not like. Who knows? What puzzled me then, and what my poor brain has never been able to comprehend is, that as nearly or quite all the Europeans I met were what are called Christians, how they could reconcile the hatred and oppression of a poor unfortunate class with their religious professions. I leave this to some head, wiser than mine to solve.
CHAPTER XII.
I returned to my home and to my books. These were true friends on whom I could rely, and with whom I could find good society, especially as I had my bread provided for. But what if I had been without books, without money and could only eat my crust after I had earned it and unable to get any work to do? This has often been one of my serious questions.