"And what things may those be?"
"Well, I want to have a good time and see other people having a good time. I want to travel, not as the mate of an old hooker like the Cormorant, but as a man with money in his pocket and time to look around him. I want to be able to buy things. I want to dress decently and to marry some time or another and settle down. I'm fond of horses, though I've never had the chance to own one; and I'm fond of cricket, though I've never touched a bat for years. I'm fond of a jolly good dinner, and I'm fond of a good cigar. To get all those things one wants money."
"And all those things come to you if you have power," said Schumer. "It implies everything material, and much more. It's the sense of it, the feeling 'I am the stronger man,' that gives the mind freedom and ease to enjoy what money can bring. You are entirely English; you want enjoyment and luxury without foundation of strength."
"Oh, good heavens!" said Floyd, "I think we have a pretty solid foundation of strength; we own half the earth, and we hold it—why? Simply because we live and let live. We don't try to grind people down with what you call power. We give them power, liberty, whatever you like to call it. Now you are a man who has traveled, and so am I. Can you tell me any spot on earth that a man may be really free in that's not under the Union Jack or the Stars and Stripes? Take the German colonies, the Dutch; haven't you always some pesky official shoving his nose into your affairs? Take the very port officers and customs, and it's the same all through the country as well as on the coast. You can't breathe in these places the same as you can where there's a decent English or American administration. I've heard foreigners wondering how it is we hold India—all those hundreds of millions of natives under the rule of a few thousand white men. As a matter of fact, we don't hold it at all; it holds itself. A native in Bombay is as free as a duke in Piccadilly; that's our secret."
Schumer laughed.
"And at any moment," said he, "those very free natives are ready to rise in their hundreds of millions and cut your throats."
"I don't think so," said Floyd. "Men don't cut the throats of their best friends."
Schumer yawned.
To argue with Schumer was like pressing against India rubber—the pressure left no impression.
They talked for a while longer on indifferent subjects, and then turned in under the shelter of the tent.