The Man Who Would Be King
The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy to follow. I
have been fellow to a beggar again and again under circumstances which
prevented either of us finding out whether the other was worthy. I have still to be
brother to a Prince, though I once came near to kinship with what might have
been a veritable King, and was promised the reversion of a Kingdom--army, law-
courts, revenue, and policy all complete. But, to-day, I greatly fear that my King is
dead, and if I want a crown I must go hunt it for myself.
The beginning of everything was in a railway-train upon the road to Mhow from
Ajmir. There had been a Deficit in the Budget, which necessitated travelling, not
Second-class, which is only half as dear as First-Class, but by Intermediate,
which is very awful indeed. There are no cushions in the Intermediate class, and
the population are either Intermediate, which is Eurasian, or native, which for a
long night journey is nasty, or Loafer, which is amusing though intoxicated.
Intermediates do not buy from refreshment-rooms. They carry their food in
bundles and pots, and buy sweets from the native sweetmeat-sellers, and drink
the roadside water. This is why in hot weather Intermediates are taken out of the
carriages dead, and in all weathers are most properly looked down upon.
My particular Intermediate happened to be empty till I reached Nasirabad, when
the big black-browed gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered, and, following the
custom of Intermediates, passed the time of day. He was a wanderer and a
vagabond like myself, but with an educated taste for whisky. He told tales of
things he had seen and done, of out-of-the-way corners of the Empire into which
he had penetrated, and of adventures in which he risked his life for a few days'
food.
"If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than the crows
where they'd get their next day's rations, it isn't seventy millions of revenue the
land would be paying--it's seven hundred millions," said he; and as I looked at his
mouth and chin I was disposed to agree with him.
We talked politics,--the politics of Loaferdom that sees things from the under side
where the lath and plaster is not smoothed off,--and we talked postal
arrangements because my friend wanted to send a telegram back from the next
station to Ajmir, the turning-off place from the Bombay to the Mhow line as you
travel westward. My friend had no money beyond eight annas which he wanted
for dinner, and I had no money at all, owing to the hitch in the Budget before
mentioned. Further, I was going into a wilderness where, though I should resume
touch with the Treasury, there were no telegraph offices. I was, therefore, unable
to help him in any way.
