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قراءة كتاب The Exiles of Faloo

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The Exiles of Faloo

The Exiles of Faloo

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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of plaited grass in which his lizard was kept, and turned it out on to the course. It made an ineffectual attempt to climb the side, and then went straight away, looking rather like a clever clockwork toy.

“Lay you ten shillings it doesn’t go round in thirty-six seconds,” said Sir John.

“Thirty-four’s record. Not good enough. I’ll back him to do two rounds in seventy-five for the same money.”

“Done. Start the watch.”

Both men put down their money and kept one eye on the stop-watch and one on the starting-point. The lizard was round in 35.5 and going strongly. A few feet further on it paused as if it were saying to itself, “Let’s see—where did I put my umbrella?” Then it turned right round and went back, presumably, to fetch it.

“Damn,” said Dr Pryce, and put the lizard tenderly back in its box again.

Sir John laughed and slipped the two half-sovereigns into his waistcoat pocket. “Want another?” he asked.

“No thanks,” said the doctor. “My beast’s got into one of his absent-minded moods. He’s like that sometimes. He might beat the record, or he might go to sleep in the first patch of sunshine.”

The club was beginning to fill up now. In the reading-room two or three members turned over the out-of-date papers—but there is really no date in Faloo. Little groups on the lawn in front of the house sipped cocktails. Lord Charles Baringstoke went from group to group with his usual plaintive, “Anybody goin’ to stand me anythin’?” Thomas was fixing the carte du jour in the frame over the dining-room mantelpiece; the fireplace was filled with pot-roses in bloom, had never known a fire, and did not possess a chimney. Two other English waiters and many native servants bustled to and fro.

Sir John and Dr Pryce took their Manhattans on the verandah. “Do you know,” said Sir John, “I almost thought you were going to elect King Smith this morning.”

“So did I,” said the doctor. “Believe we ought to have done it too. He’s better than that worm Charley Baringstoke, or a boozer like Cyril Mast, or a mean badger like Bassett. Better than most of us, in fact. It was Bassett put me off it.”

“So I noticed,” said Sir John.

“Interesting man too,” said Dr Pryce. “Has he really got these ideas—the ambitious poppycock that you talked about?”

“If he had, would you let him make a start with them?” asked Sir John, enigmatically.

“I would not,” said the doctor.

“I think you’re the man I want. We’ll talk about it at luncheon. Our curry should be ready by now.”

The meal was called luncheon, but for all classes on the island luncheon was the principal meal of the day; in fact, no regular club-dinner was served in the evening. Most of the members were gathered in the dining-room now, but a small table had been reserved for the President and Dr Soames Pryce. At the next table Mr Mandelbaum, a round-faced German of great girth, was entertaining Lord Charles Baringstoke, who under alcoholic influence was being betrayed into confidences. “You see,” he whined loudly, “it wasn’t so much that I went a mucker, because of course all my people went muckers; it was the particular kind of mucker that I went.” The German passed a fat hand over his salient moustache and addressed him as “my poor frent.”

Sir John and the doctor conducted their conversation in more discreet tones.

“Do you think,” said Sir John, “that the King really meant to be elected to-day? Did he sound you?”

“He’s not on those terms,” said Pryce.

“He could have made a certainty of it if he had not let Cyril Mast get drunk last night and had sent him up to the scratch this morning. He could have done that. It would have been Mast and Bassett against you, and my casting vote would not have come in.”

“Perhaps he took things too easily. But why should he get himself put up?”

“Well, I’ll tell you my views. It was a move to blind you and others—to make you think that he hankered for nothing but the joys of European civilisation and the society of white men. His genial manner and his free hospitality are a blind of the same nature. The man’s native through and through, soul and body. He is playing the game for his own natives, with himself at the head of them—as he is indeed to-day—but in a position of much greater power and dignity.”

“I don’t say it isn’t so,” said Pryce. “But what do you build on?”

“Several things. I’ve known Smith a long time, and I’ve only once known him miss a trade opportunity. He won’t sell liquor to his own natives. He won’t let them get it. The stills and liquor-stores are taboo. He’s after money, but he won’t do that. You’ve noticed it yourself. About two months ago I was going along by the beach one night, and I turned into Smith’s place for a drink. He was alone in his office, sitting at a table, with his back to me, and working on some papers. “Hullo, Cyril,” he said, without looking round. Evidently he was expecting Mast. There was a tin trunk open on the floor, and it was packed with blue-books and pamphlets—things of that kind. I went up to him and touched him on the shoulder. I don’t think he was so pleased to see me as he said he was. King Smith was studying the native depopulation statistics in the different groups, and making notes on them. King Smith had got old dailies and weekly reviews—radical rags—with passages marked in blue chalk, spread before him. I tried to see more, but he was very quick—shovelled them all together, threw them into the tin trunk, and kicked the lid down. He said that he had been reading some dull stuff, and then out came the whisky, of course.”

“I wonder now if he’d have any chance. I think he might.”

“Given that he had the money, and that he could get into touch with English publicists—journalists or politicians of a certain kind—I think he’d have a very good chance at first. Of course all traces of his liquor business would be traded off or sunk in the Pacific by then. The Little-Englanders and sentimental radicals would back him to a man. It would be shown that he had governed well, kept the natives sober, and was fighting for admitted independence to keep them from the dangerous influences of white civilisation.”

“Well,” said Pryce, “they are undoubtedly dangerous—for natives.”

“There are depopulation statistics to prove it. The fact that he handed us all over to what they are pleased to call justice would count in his favour. His patriotic attitude would appeal. The fact that the island is too small to matter, and that no expense was involved, would help. If he caught the country in the right temper, with nothing of real importance to distract its attention, the Chronicle and News would scream ‘Faloo for its own people!’ for a while. In the end it would be protection—French or British—but that doesn’t matter a straw to us. We should be done. Look here, doctor, I’ve made one mistake in my life and I can’t afford to make another. Whether Smith’s ideas are exactly what I say or not, he is trying to do things which will attract attention. We can’t let him start.”

“That is so,” said Pryce. “And how do we stop him? Money comes first, I suppose?”

“Certainly. I’ve already been into that point. Smith must never be much richer than he is now; if he goes on with this money-lending, he must be rather poorer. Of course, Bassett can see nothing but twenty per cent. instead

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