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SWIFT RETRIBUTION
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lable and declared it was excellent cognac, the produce of France.

The Daroga then found his way to the Doctor's bed room. "Rip open the pillows and the mattresses,"—he said to his constables.—"On many occasions have I discovered incriminating things concealed inside them."

The constables carried the bedding to the courtyard, ripped everything open and shook down the cotton wool. Nothing incriminating came out, however. The winds sportively carried away a great portion of the cotton wool and showered it down on tops of trees and heads of wayfarers in the neighbouring streets.

So the search came to an end. Badan Babu then began to draw up a list of the articles seized. Suddenly he recollected that no lathis had so far been found.

"Look every where, constables,"—he said—"if you can discover any lathis."

Shew Ratan, the up-country servant of the house, was the happy possessor of a heavy bamboo stick brought from his native village in the Mozafferpur District. The constables soon got hold of it. The Daroga examined it minutely to see if there was anything which could pass muster for an old blood-stain. But there was no such mark. The lathi nevertheless was entered in the