No More Learning

It's like this, sir," said Edwards, who had not quite relished
being called "my good friend. " "They haven't got any grievance--nothing
to hit with, don't you see, sir; and then there's not much to hit
against, because the Government is more like a kind of general
Providence, directing an old-established state of things, than that
at home, where there's something new thrown down for us to fight about
every three months. "

"You are probably, in your workshops, full of English mechanics, out of
the way of learning what the masses think. "

"I don't know so much about that. There are four of us English foremen,
and between seven and eight hundred native fitters, smiths, carpenters,
painters, and such like. "

"And they are full of the Congress, of course? "

"Never hear a word of it from year's end to year's end, and I speak the
talk too. But I wanted to ask how things are going on at home--old Tyler
and Brown and the rest? "

"We will speak of them presently, but your account of the indifference
of your men surprises me almost as much as your own. I fear you are a
backslider from the good old doctrine, Edwards. " Pagett spoke as one who
mourned the death of a near relative.

"Not a bit, Sir, but I should be if I took up with a parcel of baboos,
pleaders, and schoolboys, as never did a day's work in their lives, and
couldn't if they tried. And if you was to poll us English railway
men, mechanics, tradespeople, and the like of that all up and down the
country from Peshawur to Calcutta, you would find us mostly in a tale
together. And yet you'd know we're the same English you pay some respect
to at home at 'lection time, and we have the pull o' knowing something
about it. "

"This is very curious, but you will let me come and see you, and perhaps
you will kindly show me the railway works, and we will talk things over
at leisure.
And about all old friends and old times," added Pagett,
detecting with quick insight a look of disappointment in the mechanic's
face.

Nodding briefly to Orde, Edwards mounted his dog-cart and drove off.

"It's very disappointing," said the Member to Orde, who, while his
friend discoursed with Edwards, had been looking over a bundle of
sketches drawn on grey paper in purple ink, brought to him by a
Chuprassee.

"Don't let it trouble you, old chap," 'said Orde, sympathetically. "Look
here a moment, here are some sketches by the man who made the carved
wood screen you admired so much in the dining-room, and wanted a copy
of, and the artist himself is here too. "

"A native? " said Pagett.

"Of course," was the reply, "Bishen Singh is his name, and he has two
brothers to help him. When there is an important job to do, the three go
into partnership, but they spend most of their time and all their money
in litigation over an inheritance, and I'm afraid they are getting
involved, Thoroughbred Sikhs of the old rock, obstinate, touchy,
bigoted, and cunning, but good men for all that. Here is Bishen
Singh--shall we ask him about the Congress? "

But Bishen Singh, who approached with a respectful salaam, had never
heard of it, and he listened with a puzzled face and obviously feigned
interest to Orde's account of its aims and objects, finally shaking his
vast white turban with great significance when he learned that it was
promoted by certain pleaders named by Orde, and by educated natives.
He began with labored respect to explain how he was a poor man with no
concern in such matters, which were all under the control of God, but
presently broke out of Urdu into familiar Punjabi, the mere sound of
which had a rustic smack of village smoke-reek and plough-tail, as
he denounced the wearers of white coats, the jugglers with words who
filched his field from him, the men whose backs were never bowed in
honest work; and poured ironical scorn on the Bengali. He and one of
his brothers had seen Calcutta, and being at work there had Bengali
carpenters given to them as assistants.

"Those carpenters! " said Bishen Singh. "Black apes were more efficient
workmates, and as for the Bengali babu--tchick!