Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/196

180 existence is not yet generally recognised. It has more leisure than it cares to have, which it devotes to the columns of the Amrita Bazar Patrika, the pages of Malthus, of the Sarvajanik Sabha, or the Theosophist.

The Va'quil is now about thirty, and has already joined several free institutions where it can sit cross-legged and read the newspaper and discuss the leading article with friends. This it does in the evening. Occasionally it borrows a Famine Report, on which it pores for nights together. The result of this lucubration is a lengthy critique on Sir Richard Temple's administration, especially his famine and forest policy. At times the Va'quil draws a caricature of the late Governor, and, when it can afford to do so, it buys cheap photographs of him, Sir John Strachey, and others, which it hangs in its room head downwards. The practice may or may not have a significance.

At forty the Va'quil becomes staid and sober. Its youthful exuberance, which found vent in