It was the opium smuggler. He could not pay the fine, for he was penniless. He had no friends this side of fifty miles away, and he had with him a little daughter aged ten years or so. This was, of course, the first that I had heard of her, but it seems that she was just outside when her father was being tried, and when she heard he had to go to gaol she was in despair. They wept together.
Therefore the Sergeant whose zeal had caused the trouble repented of his work and took up a collection. In the police-office and among my clerks he got five rupees. That was but half, and they did not know where to get the rest. Then someone had a brilliant idea. "Go," he said to the Sergeant, "ask the magistrate." "Therefore," said the Sergeant, "I came in to your Honour."
"For what?"
"The other five rupees."
I laughed. How could I help it? The audacity of the demand, that I, the magistrate, should pay half the fine that I had myself inflicted!
"Sergeant," I said severely, "what have you and I to do with offenders who break the law? Are we to pay for them? What is the good of your arresting them and my fining them if we afterwards pay their fines for them? We make a mockery of the law and ruin ourselves."
He did not answer.
"You see the point?" I asked.
He did.
"Then I am going home."