And White agreed with him, solemnly, at any rate when he was sane and sober. And I couldn't complain of his inexperience. He was rather reticent at first, but afterwards we heard much--too much--of his experiences--one does, when a man gets D. T. He said he was a gentleman, and I believe it was true; he had been to a public school, Cheltenham or Repton. He hadn't, I gathered, succeeded as a gentleman at home, so they sent him to travel in the East. He liked it, it suited him. So he became a planter in Assam. That was fifteen years ago, but he didn't like Assam: the luck was against him--it always was--and he began to roll; and when a man starts rolling in India, well--He had been a clerk in merchants' offices; he had Served in a draper's shop in Calcutta; but the luck was always against him. Then he tramped up and down India, through Ceylon, Burma; he had got at one time or another to the Malay States, and, when he was very bad one day, he talked of cultivating camphor in Java. He had been a sailor on a coasting tramp; he had sold horses (which didn't belong to him) in the Deccan somewhere; he had tramped day after day begging his way for months in native bazaars; he had lived for six months with, and on, a Tamil woman in some little village down in the south. Now he was 'dealing in' pearls. "India's got hold of me," he'd say, "India's got hold of me and the East." He had views too, very much like Robson's, with additions. 'The strong hand' came in, and 'rule'. We ought to govern India more; we didn't now. Why, he had been in hundreds of places where he was the first Englishman that the people had ever seen. (Lord! think of that!) He talked a great deal about the hidden wealth of India and exploitation. He knew places where there was gold--workable too--only one wanted a little capital--coal probably and iron--and then there was this new stuff, radium. But we weren't go-ahead, progressive, the Government always put difficulties in his way. They made 'the native' their stalking-horse against European enterprise. He would work for the good of the native, he'd treat him firmly but kindly--especially, I thought, the native women, for his teeth were sharp and pointed and there were spaces between each, and there was something about his chin and jaw--_you_ know the type, I expect.