But Government won't take suggestions. It
pretends that it is too busy. However, I will put my notion on
record, and explain the example that illustrates the theory.
Once upon a time there was a good young man--a first-class officer
in his own Department--a man with a career before him and, possibly,
a K. C. G. E. at the end of it. All his superiors spoke well of
him, because he knew how to hold his tongue and his pen at the
proper times. There are to-day only eleven men in India who possess
this secret; and they have all, with one exception, attained great
honor and enormous incomes.
This good young man was quiet and self-contained--too old for his
years by far. Which always carries its own punishment. Had a
Subaltern, or a Tea-Planter's Assistant, or anybody who enjoys life
and has no care for to-morrow, done what he tried to do not a soul
would have cared. But when Peythroppe--the estimable, virtuous,
economical, quiet, hard-working, young Peythroppe--fell, there was a
flutter through five Departments.
The manner of his fall was in this way.
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