sick.' What he really wanted was that I should stay with him and prepare his chillim for his smoke. But I had been so much disgusted by his behaviour that even though Indra once hinted at his wish, I paid no heed to it, being determined not to remain in his company. Indra and I went away together.
The exquisite of Calcutta began a song, clapping his hands to keep the time, 'Let us drain our wine cups—'
For a long time, as we walked toward the village, we could hear his effeminate voice trilling forth the song with a nasal twang. Indra was ashamed of the conduct of his cousin and said slowly, 'He is a town-man, you know, and cannot stand this cold country air as we can, don't you see, Srikanta?'
'H'm!' said I.
Indra, hoping perhaps to enlist my sympathies in his cousin’s favour, then began to discourse regarding Natunda's great intellectual attainments, informing me that he would soon pass his B.A. Examination and become a Deputy Collector. I do not know what district he graces now as Deputy Collector or whether he ever succeeded in becoming one; and yet I must believe he did, otherwise how is it that at times I hear so much of the Deputy's good deeds in Bengal? He was just attaining manhood then, a season when by all accounts one's heart becomes liberal and broad, and one's sympathies become wide and expansive, as they never do at any other period of life. And yet I have been unable to forget the samples of these qualities that he showed within the few hours of our intercourse.
Indra knew all the lanes, by-ways, shops, and houses of the village, and soon found a grocer's shop: but it
