“I vow, sir, you’re right,” said Mr Dash. “The establishments kept up by the President and most of the Council, and their manner of life, not to speak of the entertainments they give, are scandalous.”
“I was not pointing at any particular person, sir,” says the Captain, with a frown. “The evil is as marked in the case of the youngest writer, since too often he adds to his faults emulation of those above him.”
“But what would you have, Captain?” asked Mr Freyne. “Sure the Company can do no more than it does, sending out orders that the writers are to be deprived even of the indulgences most necessary in this climate. Rather than see the youngsters die for the want of these common things, we are forced to wink at their evasion of the orders, as when the writer at Madrass, who was forbid to be attended by a roundel-boy, changed the shape of his umbrella and called it a squaredel, and was waited on by his boy in peace. But the worst of this meddling on the Company’s part is that we can’t consistently enforce the salutary regulations against drinking, dicing, and debt, and such like, since we have suffered the infraction of the little foolish rules on which they insist so strongly.”
“Well,” said Mr Dash, “I would have the writers left alone. Some of them will die early, but the strongest will live on, and for them I would have the Company’s regulations strictly enforced, when they have reached the higher offices, that is. The election to these offices I would direct by the general vote, which should also have power to remove an office-holder in case of incapacity on his part.”
“Come,” says my papa, “Bengall will be the paradise of writers, indeed! though I can’t but pity the Members of Council when they shall hold their places at Tom Dash’s pleasure.”
“I’ll assure you, sir,” says Mr Dash, “the factory would be much better managed, and the Gentoos more friendly to us. At present both they and the Moors are nothing but so many spies on us for our enemies’ benefit. And talking of spies, what’s your opinion of the French gentleman from Chandernagore?”
“Young le Beaume? A very sprightly and agreeable person.”
“I am assured,” very mysteriously, “that he’s here as a spy on us. Mr Menotti tells me that he left Chandernagore secretly, having been imprisoned for taking a drubbing meekly from another officer, and that he looks to win his pardon by his reports as to our movements and intentions.”
“Then Mr Menotti has misinformed you, sir,” said Captain Colquhoun, contemptuously. “Mr le Beaume left Chandernagore because, having sent a challenge to a superior officer who he conceived had insulted him, he was accused of threatening his life, and put under arrest. He broke prison to come here, and he won’t return unless we deliver him up. I would far sooner believe Menotti to be a spy than him.”
“Sir! Mr Menotti is a gentleman of the highest respectability.”