Page:Fischer - A Week with Gandhi.pdf/47



“If you permit me to summarize the suggestions you have made today about a settlement in India,” I said, “you have reversed the Cripps offer. Cripps offered you something and kept the rest for England. You are offering England something and keep the rest for India.”

“That is very true,” he agreed. “I have turned Cripps around.”

I saw from his watch that the end of the hour was approaching. I said I would not dare ask him to read my book, Men and Politics, which Dev had, but I hoped he would page through it. A secretary asked what “paging through” meant. Gandhi said, “It means looking first at the last page, then at the first page, then at a page in the middle.”

“And then throwing the book away and saying it is excellent,” I suggested. “Now I have kept you the agreed hour.”

“Yes, you have,” he said. “Go and sit in the tub.”

As I walked out of the house, I thought to my self, is that the Indian equivalent of go sit on a tack? But I thought it was a good idea anyway, only I decided to improve on it. When I got home I stripped, placed a small wooden packing case in one of the tin washtubs filled with water, folded a Turkish towel and put it on the packing case, then set a somewhat larger wooden packing case just outside the tub and put my portable typewriter