 of Hudig
&amp; Co. going home. How glorious! How good was life for those that were on the
winning side! He had won the game of life; also the game of billiards. He walked
faster, jingling his winnings, and thinking of the white stone days that had
marked the path of his existence. He thought of the trip to Lombok for ponies -
that first important transaction confided to him by Hudig; then he reviewed the
more important affairs: the quiet deal in opium; the illegal traffic in
gunpowder; the great affair of smuggled firearms, the difficult business of the
Rajah of Goak. He carried that last through by sheer pluck; he had bearded the
savage old ruler in his council room; he had bribed him with a gilt glass coach,
which, rumour said, was used as a hen-coop now; he had overpersuaded him; he had
bested him in every way. That was the way to get on. He disapproved of the
elementary dishonesty that dips the hand in the cash-box, but one could evade
the laws and push the principles of trade to their furthest consequences. Some
call that cheating. Those are the fools, the weak, the contemptible. The wise,
the strong, the respected, have no scruples. Where there are scruples there can
be no power. On that text he preached often to the young men. It was his
doctrine, and he, himself, was a shining example of its truth.
    Night after night he went home thus, after a day of toil and pleasure, drunk
with the sound of his own voice celebrating his own prosperity. On his thirtieth
birthday he went home thus. He had spent in good company a nice, noisy evening,
and, as he walked along the empty street, the feeling of his own greatness grew
upon him, lifted him above the white dust of the road, and filled him with
exultation and regrets. He had not done himself justice over there in the hotel,
he had not talked enough about himself, he had not impressed his hearers enough.
Never mind. Some other time. Now he would go home and make his wife get up and
listen to him. Why should she not get up? - and mix a cocktail for him - and
listen patiently. Just so. She shall. If he wanted he could make all the Da
Souza family get up. He had only to say a word and they would all come and sit
silently in their night vestments on the hard, cold ground of his compound and
listen, as long as he wished
