Page:MKGandhi patriot.djvu/59

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41
AN INDIAN PATRIOT

furious. "An oath, you duffer!" he cried, "you had no business to come here under an oath. If you were my brother I would knock you down!" It was the food question that especially annoyed him. One night Mr. Gandhi was invited with a number of other students to a brilliant dinner-party at the Holborn Restaurant, the friend evidently imagining that modesty would forbid any questions. But he had failed to gauge the strength of the character with which he had to deal. "When the first course came," said Mr. Gandhi, laughing as he recalled the scene, "I summoned the waiter and inquired what the soup was made of. My host saw the movement, and leaned across the table to ask what it meant. When I told him, he said passionately, “You are not fit for decent society; if you cannot act like a gentleman you had better go.” So I went."

During all this time, he was studying for the Bar at the Inner Temple. But after some months of work and play, he saw that his ideal was a false one, that he was wasting both time and money in foolish dreams, and he determined to make a complete change. He sold his violin, gave up dancing and elocution, and altered entirely the whole course of his life. In addition to lectures at the Inner