"If I were not your friend," continued Diggle, "I might say that your attitude is one of sheer obstinacy. Why not trust us? You see we trust you. I stand pledged for you with Angria; but I flatter myself I know a man when I see one: ’si fractus illabitur orbis’--you have already shown your mettle. Of course I understand your scruples; I was young myself once; I know the generous impulses that rule the hearts of youth. But this is a matter that must be decided, not by feeling, but by hard fact and cold reason. Who benefits by your scruples? A set of hard-living money-grubbers in Bombay who fatten on the oppression of the ryot, who tithe mint and anice and cummin, who hoard up treasure which they will take back with their jaundiced livers to England, there to become pests to society with their splenetic and domineering tempers. What’s the Company to you, or you to the Company? Why, Governor Pitt was an interloper; and your own father: yes, he was an interloper, and an interloper of the best." "But not a pirate," said Desmond hotly, his scornful silence yielding at last. "True, true," said Diggle suavely; "but in the Indies, you see, we don’t draw fine distinctions. We are all buccaneers in a sense; some with the sword, others the ledger. Throw in your lot frankly with me; I will stand your friend----" "You are wasting your breath and your eloquence," interrupted Desmond firmly, "and even if I were tempted to agree, as I never could be, I should remember who is talking to me." Then he added with a whimsical smile, "Come, Mr. Diggle, you are fond of quotations; I am not; but there’s one I remember--’I fear the Greeks, even----’" "You young hound!" cried Diggle, his sallow face becoming purple. His anger, it seemed to Desmond afterwards reflecting on it, was out of proportion to the cause of offence. "You talk of my eloquence. By Heaven, when I see you again I will use it otherwise. You shall hear something of how Angria wreaks his vengeance; you shall have a foretaste of the sweets in store for an obstinate recalcitrant pigheaded fool!" He strode away, leaving Desmond a prey to the gloomiest anticipations.