Poor ignorant tools of a more blindly ignorant hierarchy! constables and coolies on a pittance of a few annas a day sit on an opposite pial or loiter about in the dusty streets before the houses of men whom they recognise sooner or later to be at least as great, if not far superior to, their own masters. If the spied are sympathetic—as in most cases they are, because they know that these eight-anna-a-day men are there to eke out existence somehow—their lot is somewhat bearable. Even then occasions may occur when the spies have the hardest time of it for absolutely no purpose. A coach or a motorcar drives up Unexpectedly to the door and the spied is fast away. How to get the wherewithal to chase him secretly with the stomach half-ful? Even if the wherewithal be provided by the department where to get the swiftest conveyance at that particular moment at which it is required without notice? And after all if every impossible feat were performed by the man in the mask what is it that he can discover ? What have two friends conversed on the roadside? How can he know? What has happened within the interior of a club? How can he know? What is happening in a marriage party inside a house? How can
Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/192
