“He could have made a certainty of it if he had not let Cyril Mast get drunk last night and had sent him up to the scratch this morning. He could have done that. It would have been Mast and Bassett against you, and my casting vote would not have come in.”
“Perhaps he took things too easily. But why should he get himself put up?”
“Well, I’ll tell you my views. It was a move to blind you and others—to make you think that he hankered for nothing but the joys of European civilisation and the society of white men. His genial manner and his free hospitality are a blind of the same nature. The man’s native through and through, soul and body. He is playing the game for his own natives, with himself at the head of them—as he is indeed to-day—but in a position of much greater power and dignity.”
“I don’t say it isn’t so,” said Pryce. “But what do you build on?”
“Several things. I’ve known Smith a long time, and I’ve only once known him miss a trade opportunity. He won’t sell liquor to his own natives. He won’t let them get it. The stills and liquor-stores are taboo. He’s after money, but he won’t do that. You’ve noticed it yourself. About two months ago I was going along by the beach one night, and I turned into Smith’s place for a drink. He was alone in his office, sitting at a table, with his back to me, and working on some papers. “Hullo, Cyril,” he said, without looking round. Evidently he was expecting Mast. There was a tin trunk open on the floor, and it was packed with blue-books and pamphlets—things of that kind. I went up to him and touched him on the shoulder. I don’t think he was so pleased to see me as he said he was. King Smith was studying the native depopulation statistics in the different groups, and making notes on them. King Smith had got old dailies and weekly reviews—radical rags—with passages marked in blue chalk, spread before him. I tried to see more, but he was very quick—shovelled them all together, threw them into the tin trunk, and kicked the lid down. He said that he had been reading some dull stuff, and then out came the whisky, of course.”
“I wonder now if he’d have any chance. I think he might.”
“Given that he had the money, and that he could get into touch with English publicists—journalists or politicians of a certain kind—I think he’d have a very good chance at first. Of course all traces of his liquor business would be traded off or sunk in the Pacific by then. The Little-Englanders and sentimental radicals would back him to a man. It would be shown that he had governed well, kept the natives sober, and was fighting for admitted independence to keep them from the dangerous influences of white civilisation.”
“Well,” said Pryce, “they are undoubtedly dangerous—for natives.”
“There are depopulation statistics to prove it. The fact that he handed us all over to what they are pleased to call justice would count in his favour. His patriotic attitude would appeal. The fact that the island is too small to matter, and that no expense was involved, would help. If he caught the country in the right temper, with nothing of real importance to distract its attention, the Chronicle and News would scream ‘Faloo for its own people!’ for a while. In the end it would be protection—French or British—but that doesn’t matter a straw to us. We should be done. Look here, doctor, I’ve made one mistake in my life and I can’t afford to make another. Whether Smith’s ideas are exactly what I say or not, he is trying to do things which will attract attention. We can’t let him start.”
“That is so,” said Pryce. “And how do we stop him? Money comes first, I suppose?”