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Srikanta 'Where would you find so rotten a village as ours, sir? Why, when our new house was built, my mother, seeing how terribly the people suffered from want of water, thought of converting the pit from which the earth for the bricks had been taken, into a tank. She spent three thousand rupees on it, and a fine tank it is, sir, with a brick-built flight of steps down to the water. But they wouldn't let her perform the necessary ceremony to dedicate it as a public tank. Such fine water, but no one could taste it, touch it. Such a rascally set of people they are, sir. They are all dying of envy at our fine brick-built house. Don't you see, sir?'

'Indeed!' I said, affecting surprise, 'they would suffer terribly and yet not use the water?'

'Exactly, sir,' said Banku, smiling. 'But how long could this state of things go on? In the first year nobody came near the tank. But now the poor people and lower castes all use the water, and even people of the higher castes take water from it surreptitiously in summer. And yet they didn't let Mother perform the necessary ceremony. You little know, sir, how painful this has been to her.'

'Well,' I said, 'this, I suppose, is an instance of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.'

'Exactly, sir!' Banku remarked with great emphasis. 'It is a blessing to live boycotted and alone in such a village: don't you think so, sir?' I merely nodded in reply, without committing myself to a definite 'yes' or 'no'. But that hardly stemmed the tide of Banku's enthusiasm. I saw that the boy really loved his step-mother. The presence of a good listener gave the reins