“He is also preaching nonviolence. British Government hasn’t a better friend in India at the present hour than this same little barrister. The people are upset over the Rowlatt Bills, and Gandhi is calming them down. Arrest him, I think not!... We have much to thank Gandhi for. He helped along enlistments, and now he preaches nonviolence. It’s all religion with him. He’s a political saint. The thousands follow him like a Messiah. Pretty safe sort of thing, to have a Messiah around advising the multitudes to turn their other cheek. Not that we’ve slapped one, you know.” In the sweltering core of the native city, Dicky found the house which Gandhi used as headquarters while in Bombay. Here a letter awaited him from Nagar, written at Lahore, advising him to look to Mahatma-ji for counsel; and hoping that they would soon be together. In his room Dicky sent out for an armful of recent newspapers and publications, determined to get the situation further in hand. ... No question about India being a bit stunned over the passage of the Rowlatt Bills two weeks before. These measures provided that the ordinary criminal laws should be supplemented, and certain emergency powers added by the Government to deal with anarchical and revolutionary movements. The shock to native India lay in the fact that she had been led to expect that the measures adopted during the War would be mitigated, rather than intensified at this time. And Mahatma-ji was on the war path of the Soul. Gandhi reached Bombay on April third. He was followed by a great crowd from the railroad station to the house of his host. Dicky, who had watched from a distance the emerging of the Indian idol from his third-class coach, wondered if he were ever again to get the Little Man alone in a room as in Ahmedabad. He hadn’t been in the hotel an hour, however, before he received a message to accompany bearer to Gandhi’s headquarters. The native led him through the crowd without difficulty, and to an inner room where Mahatma-ji sat alone, both hands extended. Dicky sat down on the empty cushion before him. “It is good to see you again, Mr. Cobden.... I regret that I was not in Bombay when you arrived; especially since it happened that Nagarjuna was needed in the north at this time, but we cannot think first of our own affairs. I am expected in Lahore on the tenth, but doubtless you will start for there or for Amritsar, which is very near, before that. Nagarjuna is now in Amritsar.” “I will wait and travel with you, if you permit,” Dicky began. The other smiled. “My way of travel is not yours, I am afraid. It might be interesting enough for just one journey, but I question the judgment of it. To be seen too much with me is to become persona non grata to the English. This would prove a detriment to the work you are to do. Remember that you are an American, and that basically the American spirit is above partisanship.”