Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/21

 bullied by people who had not contributed a farthing. This sneer was passed over by me; but the co-editor winced under it, and replied hotly to N.'s insinuation. What threatened to be a bad quarrel was, however, soon made up; and we all adjourned to an adjoining hotel to discuss the future of the paper and a substantial breakfast provided for the occasion.

But by-and-bye we two editors could not quite agree between ourselves. I was for treatment of social questions chiefly; my friend P. affected politics. We settled this difference by confining each to his own forte. Our ignorance, even in this, was as boundless as was our arrogance. But was it not glorious to criticise and ridicule the highest men in the country? What a privilege for too-early-emancipated school-boys! Nothing could be easier than my share of the literary work: I turned into prose, every week, two of my versified social essays, of which I had a plentiful supply at home. Did poet ever sacrifice his substance as I did, in those days, in the public interests? My sweet sonorous hexameters surrendered bodily to the manipulations of the