“The statement of them—precisely, yes. Young Mitter has had all facilities for observing the oppression in the factories, and I have no doubt it made a deep impression upon his excellent heart. He speaks English also fairly well. I will send him to you.”
“I should like very much to see Mr. Mitter,” Mr. Batcham remarked. “Mitter, you said?”
“It will not be necessary to remember his name. Call him ‘Baboo’; he will answer to plain ‘Baboo.’ I am sure he will remember well about the oppressions.”
“I should be even better pleased,” said Mr. Batcham, “if he brought two or three of the oppressed with him.”
“I think he could also do that,” replied Mr. Banerjee without hesitation.
Then Mr. Banerjee went away and explained Mr. Batcham’s difficulty to Ambica Nath Mitter. Considering how discreetly Mr. Banerjee explained it, the sympathetic perception shown by Ambica Nath Mitter was extraordinary. It might possibly be explained by the fact that they both spoke Hindustani. At all events, Mr. Banerjee dismissed the young man of the excellent heart with the comfortable feeling that Mr. Batcham’s difficulty would be solved quite inexpensively.
Two days after, Ambica presented himself at the residence of the Brownes, accredited to Mr. Batcham by Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee. Mr. Browne had gone to office, Mrs. Browne had gone to shop. Mr. Batcham, ruddy and expansive in the thinnest of flannels, occupied a large portion of the small veranda alone. The time was most fortuitous, and Mr. Batcham received Mr. Banerjee’s labour with an agreeable sense of freedom for the most searching investigations. Having well breakfasted, digested the morning paper, and fully smoked moreover, Mr. Batcham was in the mood for the most heartrending revelations.
Ambica was a prepossessing young man, Mr. Batcham thought. His lustrous long black hair was brushed smoothly back from a forehead that insisted on its guilelessness. His soft brown eyes were timid but trustful, and his ambient tissues spread themselves over features of the most engagingly aquiline character. He was just at the anti-protuberant stage of baboo-dom, there was no offence in his fatness. He wore spotless muslin draperies dependent from either shoulder, and his pen behind his ear. In his rear were three others much like himself, but less savoury, less lubricated, less comfortable in appearance. They impressed one as less virtuous too, but this was purely the result of adversity.
Mr. Batcham began by asking “Mr. Mitter” to sit down, which Mr. Mitter did with alacrity. Never in his life had Mr. Mitter been asked to sit down by a sahib before. Then Mr. Batcham took out his note-book and pencil, and said impressively to Mr. Mitter that above all things these men must understand that they were to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth with regard to the matters upon which he was about to question them. Then he questioned them.
