140 My Little Farm 



themselves for their appointments after 

 they get them. Elementary classes in agriculture 

 were conducted by the Department at the expense 

 of the State, but Mr. Russell was in a position to 

 know that he could learn more, at less expense, by 

 coming to me, where all the books were fields and 

 all the lessons work, in a school dependent on its 

 proficiency for its profit and on its profit for its 

 proficiency. Anybody could teach any industry at 

 a loss, assuming the paymaster sufficiently rich and 

 the pupils sufficiently stupid. 



People have wondered at Mr. Russell's way of 

 coming, when I was out, but I do not believe that 

 he would be discourteous by preference. Con- 

 sider the need he had to come, and the risks he ran 

 in coming. His new post was worth keeping, at least 

 to himself, and that meant need for knowledge. 

 On the other hand, it might not be discreet to 

 resume any sort of relations with a man like me, 

 made already " dangerous " by the deadly quest 

 of fact, in a country where success depended on 

 popularity and popularity on falsehood. I had 

 written books. I might write more. Nobody 

 could tell what I might put in them. Yet no other 

 man in the world could teach Mr. Russell what he 

 had to learn from me. Afraid to approach and 

 unfit to abstain, he came, and let us observe 

 the delicate difficulties of his peculiar position 

 before denouncing his behaviour as a vulgar 

 intrusion into my personal affairs behind my back. 

 Yet he might have dropped me a line in confidence 

 and asked me to go away for a few days, so that he 



