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For his colleague Bingham added to a native idiocy of solid texture and formidable dimensions, the experience of extensive travel; and he was in particular well acquainted with the district with regard to which the Board must that day make its decision. It was certain, therefore, that his fellow-Directors would listen to him with peculiar respect, not only on account of his stupidity which necessarily commanded a certain attention, but also on account of his intimacy with plain matters of fact: he had been upon the spot: he was the man who knew.

It was just as Repton had feared. Business that might have been done in a quarter of an hour and a decision which contained no more than the issue of pieces of paper was turned into a long practical discussion by the intolerable ponderance of Bingham, who would wait until every one had had his say, and then would bring in some dreadful little technical point about a marsh, a rainy season or a fly; he was careful to pepper his conversation with local terms a hundred times more remote than the Kawanga and Mutchi-time; in every conceivable manner he put his spoke into the wheels of business.