Page:O Douglas - Olivia in India.djvu/81

Rh foot in it very conscientiously all round, I might have earned for myself a reputation of Machiavellian cunning!

What do you think I met at dinner last night? A Travelling Radical Member of Parliament!

Of course I had read of them—often—and knew exactly what sort of creatures they are—fearful wild fowl who come to India for six weeks—

tell the native they want to be a brother to him, and go home to write a book about the way India is misgoverned.

I was delighted at the prospect of seeing one quite close at hand. I pictured a strong still man with a beard, soft fat hands, and a sob in his voice that, at election times, would touch the great, deep throbbing Heart of the People. Instead, I beheld a small, thin man, with eyes as tired as any of the poor sun-dried bureaucrats, and a wide mouth with a humorous twitch at the corners; a man one couldn't imagine wanting to touch anything so silly as the Heart of the People. He talked, I noticed, very little during dinner, but the men were unusually long in joining us afterwards, and as