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friends proceeded to carry out all the ceremonies in due form. Presently some food was taken to the four suitors, who were ignorant of each other's presence. No sooner had the shopkeeper's son taken the food than he spit it out in disgust. The barber, who recollected the warning about the serpent, hearing the sound became so frightened that his feelings got the better of him. The shopkeeper's son who had heard the warning given to the barber was in such a state of alarm that he upset some of the pots, and one of them fell on the barber who was a little below him. This completed the barber's terror, who rushed out of the house shouting " Murder." The rest hearing the noise and the shouting were all equally terrified, so they too ran out of the house, and hurried away down the road, while the gardener and his friends looked on with astonishment. He could not make out what it all meant, and he asked his wife for an explanation. " My dear ! " she replied, "it is quite clear that the ceremonies in honour of your ancestors were not performed with a devout mind: therefore these forefathers of yours, though they are all famishing, will not eat, and have run away in disgust." So by her advice he repeated the ceremonies, but his forefathers never returned to take part in them.