trap-door, by means of a rope tied round his waist, asking his friend to draw him up when he felt a jerk. Greedily he disposed of the contents of the harhi and many handfuls of rice which he found close by. Then taking the harhi still more than half full of molasses on his head and a bundle of rice in his right hand, with the intention of hiding them somewhere and appeasing his hunger on future occasions, he gave the signal to his friend. The latter felt a jerk on the rope and began pulling it up, but the weight of Budhi and of the things he was carrying was too much for it, and it snapped, throwing the greedy wretch to the floor, his whole body smeared with molasses mixed with rice. He greatly feared that the house might awake, owing to the noise his fall had made, so in order to scare them away, his brain, dull in useful matters, but prolific in mischievous plans, quickly evolved a scheme, which was to impersonate a ghost by uttering aloud some indistinct nasal sounds. The plan was carried out, and the inmates of the house, believing that an evil spirit was the sole actor in the scene, could not call up courage enough to enter the storeroom, and one of them ran to the Rojhah, the exorcist, and called him in. The Rojhah muttered some charms and entered the room, when Budhi, to make the scene more terrible, rushed towards him with gaping mouth. This was too much for the exorcist, and he fainted. The whole house was in dismay: women tore their hair in anguish and the men were paralysed. At length Budhi's wife, aroused from her heavy sleep, left her room, and joined them with the report that her husband was not in their room. This increased the uneasiness of her people, for they thought that he had been spirited away; and not only the women, but the men even cried aloud at the mishap.
The friend, Juggo, was awake all the while, but he remained silent. Up till then, he had not thought it advisable to betray the secrets of his friend, but when he saw that the scene was painful beyond endurance, he revealed the facts of the case, and the whole house rang with the noise of laughter.
