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THAT evening at eight o'clock Krishna Kanta Râi was sitting on his bed in his sleeping chamber, a pillow supporting his back, pulling at his hukâ, and gently nodding over that one physic of the world, that best among intoxicants—the fumes of opium. As he thus nodded, in fancy he saw his will suddenly become a mortgage deed put up to sale. Hara Lâl had bought his entire estate for three rupees, thirteen annas, and two and two-thirds of a cowry. Then he thought that some one told him the will was not a deed of gift but a bond. Instantly it flashed across his mind that Vishnu, son of Brahma, the king of the gods, had come to Mahâdeva and, borrowing a canister of opium from him, had executed this bond, giving him a mortgage on the universe. Mahâdeva, under the stupefying influence of gânjâ, had forgotten to foreclose the mortgage. Just