all I might not fail even in Bombay.
But before I set forth the circumstances in which I decided to go to Bombay, I shall narrate my experience of the inconsiderateness and ignorance of English officials. The Judicial Assistant’s court was peripatetic. He was constantly touring, and vakils and their clients had to follow him wherever he moved his camp. The vakils would charge more whenever they had to go out of headquarters, and so the clients had naturally to incur double the expenses. The inconvenience was no concern of the judge.
The appeal of which I am talking was to be heard at Veraval where plague was raging. I have a recollection that there were as many as fifty cases daily in the place with a population of 5,500. It was practically deserted, and I put up in a deserted dharmsala at some distance from the town. But where were the clients to stay? If they were poor, they had simply to trust themselves to God’s mercy.
A friend who also had cases before the court had wired that I should put in an application for the camp to be moved to some other station because of the plague at Veraval. On my submitting the application, the sahib asked me: “Are you afraid?”
I answered: “It is not a question of my being afraid. I think I can shift for myself, but what about the clients?”
“The plague has come to stay in India,” replied the sahib. “Why fear it? The climate of Veraval is lovely. [The sahib lived far away from the town in a palatial tent pitched on the seashore.] Surely people must learn to live thus in the open.”
It was no use arguing against this philosophy. The sahib told his sheristadar: “Make a note of what Mr. Gandhi says, and let me know if it is very inconvenient for the vakils or the clients.”