Page:Quartette - Kipling (1885).djvu/19



HEN I left England for India early in the year 187—, it was with great reluctance. But, as I had nothing to urge against an arrangement which which my father thought an excellent one except this reluctance, I had agreed to his wish after a protest which he declined to accept as an argument. He was the senior partner in a mercantile house which had, among other business, large transactions in indigo; and though he told me that it was desirable that someone connected with the firm should go to India with a view to making purchases without the intervention of the Calcutta brokers—the cost of whose agency frequently left a very small margin for profit in England,—he had, I am convinced another object in wishing me to leave home.

I had left Oxford more than a year before, and up to this time had not settled to a business life, for which in truth I had little inclination, making no secret of my loathing for the office in the City. The prospect of being taken into partnership at an early date, which my father held out to me to stimulate my languid interest in invoices and ledgers, had a contrary effect; and though he found it difficult to understand my indifference and dislike to a life which more than satisfied his every aspiration, affection for his only son led him to modify his plans, and the Indian scheme was the result.

When I had fairly faced the impending change, I came by degrees to be reconciled to it, so far at least as to accept its conditions with a mental reservation. My father spoke of two years as the period of my banishment; but in my own mind I was determined that, for good or ill, my absence from England should not exceed twelve months. The event proved it to be even less.

After many fluctuations of mood I settled down towards the end of my journey into the cynical indifference so dear to the young. I looked upon my fellow-passengers with critical eyes, and decided that the men were not wise and the women were not fair. I had my own standard, as I considered a man just from Oxford had a right to have, and no one came up to it. I weighed mankind, as represented by some fifty individuals on board the steamer, in my own balances, and found them all