Carlyon Sahib Part 4

ADENE.

That _if_ I find a British official guilty of unfair behaviour----

VERA.

Foul play!

ADENE.

I shall report the action.

VERA.

Attack the man.

ADENE.

You have heard us both.

VERA.

I want you to make him feel the difficulties.

ADENE.

And I claim that you for one have conquered the very worst difficulties without ever acquiescing in wrong to a native.

CARLYON.

[_Coolly; sitting down in chair by the tea-table._] Both of you wrong, quite wrong. I never knew any real difficulties, and I often wrong people--natives and others. What do you call a wrong?

ADENE.

Roughly, anything you wouldn't do to an Englishman in England.

CARLYON.

Any objection to murder, for instance?

ADENE.

[_Smiling._] Ah, but seriously, a general att.i.tude----

CARLYON.

I have condoned murders occasionally. On the whole I am not sure we have enough of them. I have often wished to see a man knocked on the head when n.o.body would do it.

[_Turns chair facing_ ADENE.

_Enter_ SERVANT _with tea, and exit again_.

VERA.

[_To_ ADENE, _laughing_.] Prepare to receive shocks!

CARLYON.

Oh, Adene knows of old how unregenerate I am. But I've said as much as that to an interviewer!

ADENE.

There are certainly people I should like to see removed----

CARLYON.

Well, I'll tell you. Once when I was at---- I wish somebody would give me tea! Where's Elizabeth?

VERA.

[_To_ CARLYON, _taking possession of the tea-table_.] Be patient! [_To_ ADENE.] Now you've done us a service. We can never make him talk about himself.

CARLYON.

Well, I won't say where I was, it might implicate people; but there was a poor fellow, a villager, there, called Natthu, who was in the power of a money-lender. You know the sort of man?

_Enter_ ELIZABETH, R., _with her left hand wrapped, negligently in a handkerchief. She comes first up to the tea-table, and then retires to the back of the room._

ADENE.

The worst in the world! I admit occasional murdering may do them good.

[_Takes tea._

CARLYON.

It wasn't the money-lender this time! It was a policeman. Natthu had a wife and one daughter about twelve. Well, at last the money-lender was going to carry off his standing corn.

[ELIZABETH _comes forward so as to look at_ ADENE. VERA _beckons her to come and pour out the tea. She declines and retires back again._

ADENE.

Sheer ruin, of course.

CARLYON.

Starvation. Natthu was in despair, when the policeman came round one night and offered to get the money-lender sent to prison if Natthu would let him have his daughter, and he gave her.

ADENE.