Part 19 (1/2)

”You 'll kill yourself.”

Crocker answered with a chuckle.

Shelton noted with alarm the expression of his eye; there was a sort of stubborn aspiration in it. ”Still an idealist!” he thought; ”poor fellow!” ”Well,” he inquired, ”what sort of a time have you had in India?”

”Oh,” said the Indian civilian absently, ”I've, had the plague.”

”Good G.o.d!”

Crocker smiled, and added:

”Caught it on famine duty.”

”I see,” said Shelton; ”plague and famine! I suppose you fellows really think you 're doing good out there?”

His companion looked at him surprised, then answered modestly:

”We get very good screws.”

”That 's the great thing,” responded Shelton.

After a moment's silence, Crocker, looking straight before him, asked:

”Don't you think we are doing good?”

”I 'm not an authority; but, as a matter of fact, I don't.”

Crocker seemed disconcerted.

”Why?” he bluntly asked.

Shelton was not anxious to explain his views, and he did not reply.

His friend repeated:

”Why don't you think we're doing good in India?”

”Well,” said Shelton gruffly, ”how can progress be imposed on nations from outside?”

The Indian civilian, glancing at Shelton in an affectionate and doubtful way, replied:

”You have n't changed a bit, old chap.”

”No, no,” said Shelton; ”you 're not going to get out of it that way.

Give me a single example of a nation, or an individual, for that matter, who 's ever done any good without having worked up to it from within.”

Crocker, grunting, muttered, ”Evils.”

”That 's it,” said Shelton; ”we take peoples entirely different from our own, and stop their natural development by subst.i.tuting a civilisation grown for our own use. Suppose, looking at a tropical fern in a hothouse, you were to say: 'This heat 's unhealthy for me; therefore it must be bad for the fern, I 'll take it up and plant it outside in the fresh air.'”