Page:Achmed Abdullah--Wings.djvu/134

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118
WINGS

of those young men about whom you may easily produce a false impression if you describe them at all. His education had been the ordinary education of English gentlemen: in other words, he ate well, and he knew things that were information, but he did not know things that were things.

He was positive only about the one fact, that the white race was the race, that Asia had not even a sporting chance, and that men like Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, Akbar, and Aurangzeb were "rum blighters with unpronounceable names."

And so there was a nasty scene when Krishnavana and Agnes mentioned their miscegenating intentions. Agnes's love for the Hindu could not stand up against High Church and Old Port; her brother won, and the Brahman took his medicine.

Only when he was about to turn the handle of the door, he said:

"Where is the religion of robbers; where is the forbearance of a fool; where is the affection of a courtezan; where is the truth of a Christian?"

Couzens, who was very busy with his sister who had fainted, made some remark about crazy Oriental metaphors. But perhaps he would have thought a little differently if he could have heard what the