Half-an-hour later I met Parkinson, another second-loot who had just
shed his pip.
"Well, what are you going to do now?" I asked.
"I'm a bit dubious," he said.
"Try tea-planting in Ceylon," I suggested. "Elephants, spicy breezes,
swing in a hammock all day watching coolies. My dear boy, were I
twenty years younger I should be inquiring about a berth on the next
steamer."
"Ah," said Parkinson, "of course Ceylon's all right, and I've a lot
of pals going out there; but what about rubber-planting in the Malay
Peninsula? They've got tigers there. That's rather a pull."
I admitted the attraction of tigers to certain tastes, but not to
mine. In my case the pull, I thought, might be on the tiger's side.
Since these interviews I have been going the rounds of my military
acquaintances and I find a general feeling in favour of Ceylon or the
Malay Peninsula.
Of course it's an excellent thing that they should take up the white
man's burden and make the coolies work, only I'm in dread lest the
overcrowding we suffer from in England may be extended to the Orient.
Will there be enough plantations, coolies and big game to go round
amongst our subalterns?