black skin set off against a thousand and one virtues would yet be black after all! Charity hides a thousand faults, but black skin, a thousand virtues.
Not to speak of reward, Dinabandhu had to suffer many humiliations during the last days of his career. There was a quarrel between the Postmaster General and the Director General. Dinabandhu's fault was that he helped the Postmaster General in his work. He was packed off to some other work—for a certain period, in the Railway Department, and then, in Howrah Division. This was the last change in his service life.
For a long time past Dinabandhu had been suffering from a serious illness owing to excessive strain of work. Some people say diabetes usually turns out fatal. I do not know if it does, but of late I had an idea that Dinabandhu would come round, for ever since he had the disease Dinabandhu had been living a very cautious and temperate life. He took to eating opium in a very small measure, and said that it did him some good. But all of a sudden in the month of Aswin of the year 1280 B. S. (1874 A.D.-Tr) he became bed-ridden with a boil. Details of his death are known to all. There is no need to repeat them here, nor do I feel inclined to do so. May it not be anybody's charge to write about the death of such a friend! This would have been my prayer today, if prayers of man ever bore fruit.
There are few places in Bengal which Dinabandhu did not visit, and wherever he went he gathered friends around him. Whosoever heard about his visit became eager to make his acquaintance, and whosoever made his acquaintance became his friend. I do not know of any person in Bengal today who can rival Dinabandhu as a humorist. Dinabandhu became the very life and soul of an assembly he would join, casting a spell on all by his sweet and humorous conversation. Those who sat listening to his talk would forget the sorrows of their hearts and rolled in laughter. His works are no doubt the best works of humour in Bengali literature but they fail to reveal even an iota of his command of humour. In fact it was his conversation which really revealed his great power of introducing humorous situations. Often he would appear as Humour personified, and we know of many who on several occasions fled from his presence crying, "Oh! we have spent ourselves out laughing." In the field of humour Dinabandhu was indeed an enchanter.
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