Debtor. Well, your Honour will remember that last October your Honour got up boat races here.
Myself. Certainly.
Debtor. And Mandalay sent us a challenge.
Myself. Well?
Debtor. Naturally I believed in our boat. (Note the "our"—his and mine). I was sure it must win, and for our [his and my] credit I wagered all I could get on it.
Myself. Hum!
Debtor. We lost.
Myself. There was always a possibility of that.
Debtor (indignantly). Not with a fair race. But they drugged our steersman. I call it a swindle, but I had to pay, and consequently am now insolvent and in your Honour's hands.
Was there any truth in this? There was no truth, of course. These debtors became insolvent through the action of two or three newly arrived firms of money-lenders. That was clear enough. Possibly they had a rupee or two on the boat race, but that would hardly affect matters. They made this appeal to try to get at me—the man—behind the law in which I was encased. They will do anything to achieve that. Like all human beings they are terrified at law and want to touch humanity, no matter what it does. They can bear from a man what they cannot from a law. This is manifest all through one's official life. People, for instance, will not come to see you in Court, but come to your private house. That is to try to get at the humanity they know you possess. That is what they want—your personality; for it will understand; whereas a law—what can it know of anything?