The men who govern India--more power to them and her!--are few.
Those who stand in their way and pretend to help them with a flood
of words are a host. And from the host goes up an endless cry that
India is the home of thugs, and of three hundred million hungry ones.

The men who know--and Athelstan King might claim to know a little--
answer that she is the original home of chivalry and the modern
mistress of as many decent, gallant, native gentlemen as ever
graced a page of history.

The charge has seen the light in print that India--well-spring of
plague and sudden death and money-lenders--has sold her soul to
twenty succeeding conquerors in turn.

Athelstan King and a hundred like him whom India has picked from
British stock and taught, can answer truly that she has won it back
again from each by very purity of purpose.

So when the world war broke the world was destined to be surprised
on India's account. The Red Sea, full of racing transports crowded
with dark-skinned gentlemen, whose one prayer was that the war might
not be over before they should have struck a blow for Britain, was
the Indian army's answer to the press.

The rest of India paid its taxes and contributed and muzzled itself
and set to work to make supplies. For they understand in India,
almost as nowhere else, the meaning of such old-fashioned words
as gratitude and honor; and of such platitudes as, "Give and it
shall be given unto you."