" Nafferton told me that I did not
understand the administration of the Province.
Our Government is rather peculiar. It gushes on the agricultural
and general information side, and will supply a moderately
respectable man with all sorts of "economic statistics," if he
speaks to it prettily. For instance, you are interested in gold-
washing in the sands of the Sutlej. You pull the string, and find
that it wakes up half a dozen Departments, and finally communicates,
say, with a friend of yours in the Telegraph, who once wrote some
notes on the customs of the gold-washers when he was on
construction-work in their part of the Empire. He may or may not be
pleased at being ordered to write out everything he knows for your
benefit. This depends on his temperament. The bigger man you are,
the more information and the greater trouble can you raise.
Nafferton was not a big man; but he had the reputation of being very
earnest." An "earnest" man can do much with a Government. There
was an earnest man who once nearly wrecked . . . but all India knows
THAT story.
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