“Ditta Mull says:--'This thing is the talk of a child, and was made up by fools.' But I don't think you are a fool, Councillor Sahib,” said Todds, hastily. “You caught my goat. This is what Ditta Mull says:--'I am not a fool, and why should the Sirkar say I am a child? I can see if the land is good and if the landlord is good. If I am a fool, the sin is upon my own head. For five years I take my ground for which I have saved money, and a wife I take too, and a little son is born.' Ditta Mull has one daughter now, but he SAYS he will have a son, soon. And he says: 'At the end of five years, by this new bundobust, I must go. If I do not go, I must get fresh seals and takkus-stamps on the papers, perhaps in the middle of the harvest, and to go to the law-courts once is wisdom, but to go twice is Jehannum.' That is QUITE true,” explained Tods, gravely. “All my friends say so. And Ditta Mull says:--'Always fresh takkus and paying money to vakils and chaprassis and law-courts every five years or else the landlord makes me go. Why do I want to go? Am I fool? If I am a fool and do not know, after forty years, good land when I see it, let me die! But if the new bundobust says for FIFTEEN years, then it is good and wise. My little son is a man, and I am burnt, and he takes the ground or another ground, paying only once for the takkus-stamps on the papers, and his little son is born, and at the end of fifteen years is a man too. But what profit is there in five years and fresh papers? Nothing but dikh, trouble, dikh. We are not young men who take these lands, but old ones--not jais, but tradesmen with a little money--and for fifteen years we shall have peace. Nor are we children that the Sirkar should treat us so.” Here Tods stopped short, for the whole table were listening. The Legal Member said to Tods: “Is that all?” “All I can remember,” said Tods. “But you should see Ditta Mull's big monkey. It's just like a Councillor Sahib.” “Tods! Go to bed,” said his father. Tods gathered up his dressing-gown tail and departed. The Legal Member brought his hand down on the table with a crash--“By Jove!” said the Legal Member, “I believe the boy is right. The short tenure IS the weak point.” He left early, thinking over what Tods had said. Now, it was obviously impossible for the Legal Member to play with a bunnia's monkey, by way of getting understanding; but he did better. He made inquiries, always bearing in mind the fact that the real native--not the hybrid, University-trained mule--is as timid as a colt, and, little by little, he coaxed some of the men whom the measure concerned most intimately to give in their views, which squared very closely with Tods' evidence. So the Bill was amended in that clause; and the Legal Member was filled with an uneasy suspicion that Native Members represent very little except the Orders they carry on their bosoms. But he put the thought from him as illiberal. He was a most Liberal Man.