The Hidden Treasure
Burberry, to which he now clung day and night, inspiring
that respectable garment with an appearance of jaunriness
quite foreign to its nature. The sight of him and it together
roused in me an unreasonable silent fury. Why should Shah
Riza snatch my clothes without even asking by your leave?
When I made a feeble attempt to retrieve it, all he had said
was: " And am I to die of cold?" Which is, I believe, known
technically as a rhetorical question.
The forces of communism show themselves in an uncon-
trovertible manner when the forces of nature are with them.
Given a sufficiently cold night and two overcoats, one human
being obviously cannot claim more than one of these: the
laws of property go by the board. This I was prepared to
concede with a good grace; but it was a different matter to
see the Philosopher in the warm sunlight by day still clinging
to my favourite wrap with the obvious assumption that a
holy man ought to be well dressed. Shah Riza gave himself
great airs of holiness: he was always saying his prayers when
there was work to be done: it made him the most respectable
sort of chaperon one could possibly desire, and there his chief
usefulness ended.
I did not mind his prayers, though he chose the place nearest
the fire to say them in, and caused us all great inconvenience:
what I resented was the assumption that holiness is a virtue
that other people should be glad to pay for, instead of being a
private affair between yourself and you. In this opinion,
however, I was alone. Shah Riza's holiness was an asset
recognized by all. He used it to domineer in a mild way at
every evening gathering, and when I asked him to arrange
my sleeping-sack, or find the medicine box, or tackle any mun-
dane chore, he would announce that he was just about to say
his prayers, and relegate me and my importunities to an inferior
plane.
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