C., The
Nephew, Was Of The Finest Type Of Young Englishman, Clean Cut,
Enthusiastic, Good Looking, With An Air Of Engaging Vitality And
Optimism.
His partner, of his own age, was an insufferable youth.
Brought up in some small Scottish valley, his outlook had never
widened.
Because he wanted to buy four oxen at a cheaper price,
he tried desperately to abrogate quarantine regulations. If he
had succeeded, he would have made a few rupees, but would have
introduced disease in his neighbours' herds. This consideration
did not affect him. He was much given to sneering at what he
could not understand; and therefore, a great deal met with his
disapproval. His reading had evidently brought him down only to
about the middle sixties; and affairs at that date were to him
still burning questions. Thus he would declaim vehemently over
the Alabama claims.
"I blush with shame," he would cry, "when I think of England's
attitude in that matter."
We pointed out that the dispute had been amicably settled by the
best minds of the time, had passed between the covers of history,
and had given way in immediate importance to several later
topics.
"This vacillating policy," he swept on, "annoys me. For my part,
I should like to see so firm a stand taken on all questions that
in any part of the world, whenever a man, and wherever a man,
said 'I am an Englishman? everybody else would draw back!'"
He was an incredible person. However, I was glad to see him; he
and a few others of his kind have consoled me for a number of
Americans I have met abroad.
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