RÁMDÁ.
Nagendra Babu was now the wealthiest man in Ratnapur. Puffed up by worldly success, he began to treat his neighbours arrogantly and, with one exception, they did not dare to pay him back in his own coin. Rámdás Ghosal, known far and wide as Rámdá, flattered or feared no one. Having a little rent-free and inherited land, he was quite independent of patronage. Rámdá was "everyone's grandfather," a friend of the poor, whose joys and sorrows he shared. He watched by sick-beds, helped to carry dead bodies to the burning-ghát, in short did everything in his power for others, refusing remuneration in any shape. He was consequently loved and respected by all classes. Rámdá was the consistent enemy of hypocrisy and oppression—qualities which became conspicuous in Nagendra Babu's nature under the deteriorating influence of wealth. He met the great man's studied insolence with a volley of chaff, which is particularly galling to vain people because they are incapable of understanding it.
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