compliments, each man wishing to give precedence to the other. While one said: "Pray sir! precede me!" the other politely declined: "Nay sir! do you please go first." At last, Beni Babu of Bally went forward and said: "Please one of you gentlemen go on ahead. I cannot stand here in the street and catch cold." An amicable arrangement being at last come to, the whole company arrived at the house of the bride's father and entered.
The bridegroom took his seat in the assembly. Numbers of roughs were standing about, ripe for mischief. The distribution of money to the village, and other subjects, then came up for discussion. Thakchacha was doing his best, but apparently without avail, to effect some arrangement for his own profit. A rough blustering sort of fellow came up to him and said: "Who is this low Mahomedan? Get out of this ! what has a Mahomedan to do with Hindu concerns?" Thakchacha was furious, and shaking his head fiercely, his eyes inflamed with passion, abused the man roundly.
This was the very opportunity Matilall's young friends, Haladhar, Gadadhar, and the other young Babus, had been longing for. They saw from the clouds that were gathering that a storm was imminent. One set to work to tear the carpet into pieces, another to extinguish the lamps: some set the chandeliers clashing and jingling, while others threw missiles among the assembled company. Some of the people of the bride's father, seeing the confusion they were creating, began to abuse them and strike them with their fists, and Matilall seeing the quarrel in progress, thought to himself: "I fancy I am not destined to get married. I may have to return home after all, with the thread only on my wrist."
