From Governor General to the British officers who played polo with the
Peshwa's son, they all accepted him as one of themselves; considered it
good diplomacy that he had been sent to Oxford and made over.
There was just one man who had misgivings, the Resident at Poona. He
was a small, tired, worn-out official--an executive, a perpetual wheel
in the works, always close to the red-tape-tied papers, always.
Strange that one not a dreamer, no sixth-sense, should have attained to
an intuition--which it was, his distrust of the cheery, sporty Nana
Sahib. That Hodson's superiors intimated that India was getting to his
liver when he wrote, very cautiously, of this obsession, made no
difference; and clinging to his distrust, he achieved something.
After all it was rather strange that the matter had not been taken out
of his hands, but it wasn't. A sort of departmental formula running;
"Commissioner So-and-So has the matter in hand--refer to him." And so,
when a new danger appeared on the distressed horizon, Amir Khan and a
hundred thousand massed horsemen, Captain Barlow was sent to consult
with the Resident.
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