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 consciousness, I saw Mr Doke bending over me. ‘How do you feel?’ he asked me.

‘I am all right,’ I replied, ‘but there is pain in the teeth and the ribs. Where is Mir Alam?’

‘He has been arrested along with the rest.’

‘They should be released.’

‘That is all very well. But here you are in a stranger’s office with your lip and cheek badly lacerated. The police are ready to take you to the hospital, but if you will go to my place, Mrs Doke and I will minister to your comforts as best we can.’

‘Yes, please take me to your place. Thank the police for their offer but tell them that I prefer to go with you.’

Mr Chamney the Registrar of Asiatics too now arrived on the scene. I was taken in a carriage to this good clergyman’s residence in Smit Street and a doctor was called in. Meanwhile I said to Mr Chamney: ‘I wished to come to your office, give ten finger-prints and take out the first certificate of registration, but God willed it otherwise. However I have now to request you to bring the papers and allow me to register at once. I hope that you will not let any one else register before me.’

‘Where is the hurry about it?’ asked Mr Chamney. ‘The doctor will be here soon. You please rest yourself and all will be well. I will issue certificates to others but keep your name at the head of the list.’

‘Not so,’ I replied. ‘I am pledged to take out the first certificate if I am alive and if it is acceptable to God. It is therefore that I insist upon the papers being brought here and now.’

Upon this Mr Chamney went away to bring the papers.

The second thing for me to do was to wire to the Attorney-General that I did not hold Mir Alam and others guilty for the assault committed upon me, that in any case I did not wish them to be prosecuted and that I hoped they would be discharged for my sake. But the Europeans of Johannesburg addressed a strong letter to the Attorney-General saying that whatever views Gandhi might hold