Hauksbee
read on and thought calmly as she read.
Kipling - Poems
" and tore it open with a paper-knife, and
all the MS. enclosures tumbled out on the floor.
Mrs. Hauksbee began reading. I have said the batch was rather
important. That is quite enough for you to know. It referred to some
correspondence, two measures, a peremptory order to a native chief and
two dozen other things. Mrs. Hauksbee gasped as she read, for the first
glimpse of the naked machinery of the Great Indian Government, stripped
of its casings, and lacquer, and paint, and guard-rails, impresses even
the most stupid man. And Mrs. Hauksbee was a clever woman. She was
a little afraid at first, and felt as if she had laid hold of a
lightning-flash by the tail, and did not quite know what to do with it.
There were remarks and initials at the side of the papers; and some
of the remarks were rather more severe than the papers. The initials
belonged to men who are all dead or gone now; but they were great in
their day.
Mrs.
Hauksbee read on and thought calmly as she read. Then the value of
her trove struck her, and she cast about for the best method of using
it. Then Tarrion dropped in, and they read through all the papers
together, and Tarrion, not knowing how she had come by them, vowed that
Mrs. Hauksbee was the greatest woman on earth.
Which I believe was true, or nearly so.
"The honest course is always the best," said Tarrion after an hour and a
half of study and conversation. "All things considered, the Intelligence
Branch is about my form. Either that or the Foreign Office. I go to lay
siege to the High Gods in their Temples. "
He did not seek a little man, or a little big man, or a weak Head of a
strong Department, but he called on the biggest and strongest man that
the Government owned, and explained that he wanted an appointment at
Simla on a good salary. The compound insolence of this amused the Strong
Man, and, as he had nothing to do for the moment, he listened to the
proposals of the audacious Tarrion.
"You have, I presume, some special qualifications, besides the gift of
self-assertion, for the claims you put forwards? " said the Strong Man.
"That, Sir," said Tarrion, "is for you to judge. " Then he began, for
he had a good memory, quoting a few of the more important notes in the
papers--slowly and one by one as a man drops chlorodyne into a glass.
When he had reached the peremptory order--and it WAS a peremptory
order--the Strong Man was troubled.
all the MS. enclosures tumbled out on the floor.
Mrs. Hauksbee began reading. I have said the batch was rather
important. That is quite enough for you to know. It referred to some
correspondence, two measures, a peremptory order to a native chief and
two dozen other things. Mrs. Hauksbee gasped as she read, for the first
glimpse of the naked machinery of the Great Indian Government, stripped
of its casings, and lacquer, and paint, and guard-rails, impresses even
the most stupid man. And Mrs. Hauksbee was a clever woman. She was
a little afraid at first, and felt as if she had laid hold of a
lightning-flash by the tail, and did not quite know what to do with it.
There were remarks and initials at the side of the papers; and some
of the remarks were rather more severe than the papers. The initials
belonged to men who are all dead or gone now; but they were great in
their day.
Mrs.
Hauksbee read on and thought calmly as she read. Then the value of
her trove struck her, and she cast about for the best method of using
it. Then Tarrion dropped in, and they read through all the papers
together, and Tarrion, not knowing how she had come by them, vowed that
Mrs. Hauksbee was the greatest woman on earth.
Which I believe was true, or nearly so.
"The honest course is always the best," said Tarrion after an hour and a
half of study and conversation. "All things considered, the Intelligence
Branch is about my form. Either that or the Foreign Office. I go to lay
siege to the High Gods in their Temples. "
He did not seek a little man, or a little big man, or a weak Head of a
strong Department, but he called on the biggest and strongest man that
the Government owned, and explained that he wanted an appointment at
Simla on a good salary. The compound insolence of this amused the Strong
Man, and, as he had nothing to do for the moment, he listened to the
proposals of the audacious Tarrion.
"You have, I presume, some special qualifications, besides the gift of
self-assertion, for the claims you put forwards? " said the Strong Man.
"That, Sir," said Tarrion, "is for you to judge. " Then he began, for
he had a good memory, quoting a few of the more important notes in the
papers--slowly and one by one as a man drops chlorodyne into a glass.
When he had reached the peremptory order--and it WAS a peremptory
order--the Strong Man was troubled.
