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efore this cursed sun gets too high. The heat’s going to be devilish this year, I feel it in my bones.
Well, doctor, we’ve been arguing so much that I haven’t asked for your news. I only got in from the
jungle yesterday. I ought to go back the day after tomorrow–don’t know whether I shall. Has anything
been happening in Kyauktada? Any scandals?’
The doctor looked suddenly serious. He had taken off his spectacles, and his face, with dark liquid
eyes recalled that of a black retriever dog. He looked away, and spoke in a slightly more hesitant tone
than before.
‘The fact iss, my friend, there iss a most unpleasant business afoot. You will perhaps laugh–it
sounds nothing–but I am in serious trouble. Or rather, I am in danger of trouble. It iss an underground
business. You Europeans will never hear of it directly. In this place’–he waved a hand towards the
bazaar–‘there iss perpetual conspiracies and plottings of which you do not hear. But to us they mean
much.’
‘What’s been happening, then?’
‘It iss this. An intrigue iss brewing against me. A most serious intrigue which iss intended to
blacken my character and ruin my official career. Ass an Englishman you will not understand these
things. I have incurred the enmity of a man you probably do not know, U Po Kyin, the Sub-divisional
Magistrate. He iss a most dangerous man. The damage that he can do to me iss incalculable.’
‘U Po Kyin? Which one is that?’
‘The great fat man with many teeth. Hiss house iss down the road there, a hundred yards away.’
‘Oh, that fat scoundrel? I know him well.’
‘No, no, my friend, no, no!’ exclaimed the doctor quite eagerly; ‘it cannot be that you know him.
Only an Oriental could know him. You, an English gentleman, cannot sink your mind to the depth of
such ass U Po Kyin. He iss more than a scoundrel, he iss–what shall I say? Words fail me. He recalls
to me a crocodile in human shape. He hass the cunning of the crocodile, its cruelty, its bestiality. If
you knew the record of that man! The outrages he hass committed! The extortions, the briberies! The
girls he hass ruined, raping them before the very eyes of their mothers! Ah, an English gentleman
cannot imagine such a character. And this iss the man who hass taken hiss oath to ruin me.’
‘I’ve heard a good deal about U Po Kyin from various sources,’ Flory said. ‘He seems a fair
sample of a Burmese magistrate. A Burman told me that during the War U Po Kyin was at work
recruiting, and he raised a battalion from his own illegitimate sons. Is that true?’
‘It could hardly be so,’ said the doctor, ‘for they would not have been old enough. But off hiss
villainy there iss no doubt. And now he iss determined upon ruining me. In the first place he hates me
because I know too much about him; and besides, he iss the enemy of any reasonably honest man. He
will proceed–such iss the practice of such men–by calumny. He will spread reports about me–reports
of the most appalling and untrue descriptions. Already he iss beginning them.’
‘But would anyone believe a fellow like that against you? He’s only a low–down magistrate.
You’re a high official.’
‘Ah, Mr Flory, you do not understand Oriental cunning. U Po Kyin hass ruined higher officials than
I. He will know ways to make himself believed. And therefore–ah, it iss a difficult business!’