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 had to disobey the British law because I was acting in obedience with a higher law, with the voice of my conscience. This was my first act of civil disobedience against the British. My desire was to establish the principle that no Englishman had the right to tell me to leave any part of my country where I had gone for a peaceful pursuit. The government begged me repeatedly to drop my plea of guilty. Finally the magistrate closed the case. Civil disobedience had won. It became the method by which India could be made free.”

“This,” I said, “is perhaps another clue to your position in India.”

“What I did,” he interrupted, “was a very ordinary thing. I declared that the British could not order me around in my own country.”

“It was ordinary,” I commented, “but you were the first to do it. It’s like the story of Columbus and the egg.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Have you never heard the story of Columbus and the egg?” I asked Gandhi.

“No,” he confessed, “tell me.”

I told him. He laughed. “That’s right,” he said, “it was an ordinary thing to say that I had the right to go peacefully anywhere in my own country. But no one had said it before.”

By this time we had returned to Gandhi’s house.

At three o’clock I came for my regular inter-