CHAPTER III.
WAR AT THE SALT BOARD.
Hos motus animorum atque haec certamina tanta--
The Salt Board had excessively respectable traditions. Its commencementdated far back in Indian history, long before the conquest of the SandyTracts, and its _prestige_ had been maintained by a series of officialsall of whom had been in the habit of speaking of one another with theutmost respect. The 'illustrious Jones,' 'the great administratorBrown,' the 'sagacious and statesmanlike Robinson,' all threw the lustreof their abilities over the institution, and were appealed to withunhesitating faith by their successors in the department. When onemember referred to another he spoke of himself as 'sitting at his feet,'or as 'formed in his school,' or as 'guided by his principles,' inlanguage that was perhaps a little unnecessarily grandiloquent, butwhich had, at any rate, the effect of investing the Board with a sort ofmoral grandeur with the uninitiated. Even the mistakes of the Boardacquired a sort of dignity and were not to be spoken of in an off-handor irreverential manner. They might seem mistakes, but it was notprudent to be too sure that they were so. Many other decisions of theBoard had been cavilled at by rash critics, and time had shown theirwisdom. The Board, moreover, had a certain grand, misty way of its ownof talking, which made its proceedings somewhat hard to criticise.Indeed, all outside criticism was resented as an impertinence, and thoserash critics who had the temerity to attempt it were put down with thecontemptuous decisiveness appropriate to ill-judged advisers. There wasa regular conventional way of crushing them: first it was contendedthat, being outsiders, they could not, in the nature of things,understand the matter; as if there was a sort of inner and spiritualsense, by which the affairs of the Salt Board must be apprehended. Thenthere were stereotyped phrases, which really meant nothing, but whichwere understood and accepted in the Sandy Tracts as implying that theBoard considered the subject disposed of and did not want furtherdiscussion. Arguments which could not be otherwise met were smothered inan array of big names, or parried by pathetic references to the zeal ofthe Salt officials and the conscientious manner in which they worked inthe sun. Whatever line was adopted, it was the invariable tradition thatGovernment should express its concurrence, and so the whole thing endedcomfortably to all parties concerned. All this was naturally regarded asbeing highly satisfactory. But the maintenance of this agreeableequilibrium depended on the persons concerned being tempered of theright metal, imbued with the right spirit, and what Strutt used to call'loyal.' The intrusion of an alien spirit could not fail to producedeplorable disturbance, disquiet and the dissipation of all sorts ofagreeable illusions. And this was what happened when Blunt--who was anoutsider, the hardest, roughest, most matter-of-fact of commercialEnglishmen--was appointed to the Board. Blunt violated every traditionin the most ruthless fashion, was unimpressed by all the solemnitieswhich awed conventional beholders, and had the most inconvenient way ofasking what things meant, and (as he used to say with a sort of horridglee) 'of picking out the heart of a thing.' Now, the Board did not atall relish having its heart picked out in this unceremonious fashion,and resented it with a sort of passionate dislike. Fotheringham feltthat he had indeed fallen on very evil times, and that the pleasant daysof peace were numbered. Cockshaw, when he found that Blunt wouldneither smoke nor play whist, gave him up as a bore. The very clerks inthe office became agitated and depressed. When Blunt pulled out hisspectacles and produced his papers, and went ruthlessly into figures,looking rigid and tough, and implacable and indefatigable, bothFotheringham and Cockshaw knew that their places were not worth havingand that they must look for comfortable quarters elsewhere. Fotheringhamcounted the months to the time when his pension would be due. Cockshaw,who was a man of action, applied forthwith for the ChiefCommissionership of the Carraway Islands, which was just then in themarket.
Blunt had not been many weeks at Dustypore before he showed todemonstration at the Board that the accounts were kept on an entirelywrong footing, and that a vast sum of money, five or six lakhs, was nottraceable.
'It is the floating balance,' said Fotheringham, with an air of quietassurance, arising from his having given the same reply frequentlybefore, and always found it answer.
'Perhaps you will trace it, then,' said Blunt, pushing the papers acrossto Fotheringham in the most unfeeling way. '_I_ cannot.'
'We had better send for Strutt,' said Cockshaw, who knew nothing aboutthe accounts himself, and had a nervous distrust of Fotheringham'sexplanations. Thereupon Strutt appeared, radiant and self-satisfied, andcleared up everything with the easy air of a man who is and who feelshimself thoroughly master of the situation.
'No,' he said, in reply to Fotheringham's inquiry, 'not in the floatingbalance, but in Suspense Account A: here it is, you see: one item, 2lakhs--85,000 rs. 15 annas 3 pie.'
'Of course,' said Fotheringham, ignoring his blunder with an air ofplacid dignity, 'there, you see, it is!'
'Well,' said Blunt, insatiable of explanation, 'but you said it was inthe floating balance; and pray where are the other items, and what isSuspense Account A, and how many other Suspense Accounts have you? Praygo on, Mr. Strutt.'
So Mr. Strutt had to go on, and then it was sad to see the brightnessfade out of his face, and his pleasant swagger disappear, and hisanswers get wilder and wilder as Blunt led him from figure to figure,puzzled him by putting things in all sorts of new lights, and finallytook him completely out of his depth.
This was not the sort of treatment to which Strutt had been accustomed,or for which he was constitutionally fitted. At last, in despair, hesent down for Vernon and the Head Accountant, and these two brought up apile of ledgers, and traced the missing sums from one account intoanother in a manner which baffled all Fotheringham's attempts to followthem, and proved at last to their own satisfaction that all was right.
Still the horrible Blunt was only half convinced.
'All _may_ be right,' he said, 'and I will take your words that it _is_so. But the figures do not prove it; nor do they prove anything exceptthat the system of accounts is deplorable. Any amount of fraud might beperpetrated under them. I can't understand them: Strutt does notunderstand them: not one of you gentlemen understands them. This maysuit you; but, as for me, I hate what I cannot understand.'
So no doubt did Fotheringham, and this was one reason why he socordially hated Blunt.
Another thing about Blunt that irritated his colleagues was his way ofcoughing--a loud, harsh, strident cough--whenever he was vexed.
'His coughs are quite like oaths,' Fotheringham said with a shudder; andit must be confessed that Blunt could throw an expression that soundedhorribly like 'damn it' into his mode of clearing his throat; and thatwhen Fotheringham was arguing with him he cleared his throat oftener andmore vigorously than can have been necessary.