ments twanging noisily. Near him were his mohurrirs writing up their ledgers, and before him stood sundry creditors, tenants of his, and tradesmen from the bazaar, some of whose accounts were passed, and others refused. People kept thronging into the reception-room. Certain of his tradespeople were explaining how they had been supplying him for years with one thing and another, and now were in great distress, having hitherto received nothing by way of payment; how, moreover, from their constant journeyings to and fro, their business was being utterly neglected and ruined. Retail shopkeepers too, such as oilmen, timber-merchants and sweetmeat-sellers, were complaining bitterly that they were ruined, and that their lives were not worth a pin's head: if he continued to treat them as he was doing, they could not possibly live: they had worn out the muscles of their legs in their constant journeyings to and fro to get payment: their shops were all shut, their wives and children starving. The whole time of the Babu's dewan was taken up in answering these people. "Go away for the present," he was saying, "you will receive payment all right; why do you jabber so much?" Did any of them venture to remonstrate, Baburam Babu would scowl, abuse him roundly, and have him for- cibly ejected from the room.
A great many of the wealthy Babus of Bengal take the goods of the simple country-folk on credit: it would give them an attack of fever to have to pay ready-money for anything. They have the cash in their chests, but if they were not to keep putting their creditors off, how could they keep their reception-rooms crowded? Whether a poor tradesman lives or dies is no concern of theirs; only let them play the magnifico, and their fathers' and grandfathers' names be kept before the public! Many there are who thus make a false show of being rich; they
