Page:Stories of Bengalee life - Prabhat Kumar Mukerji.pdf/17

Rh. Thanks to Swadeshi, he need not feel ashamed at it now. Lately he has frequently been heard saying to his friends with evident pride—"Don't you trust the shopkeepers, gentlemen. What they sell as country sugar is really imported from Java. Many people think that yellow sugar is always country produce and it is only the crystal white variety that comes from foreign lands. But that is a great mistake. Thousands of tons of yellow sugar are imported every year from Java and elsewhere. I would prefer goor any day gentlemen, to be absolutely on the safe side."

Finishing his tea, Subodh shouted for the house-maid to take the cup and saucer away but nobody came. He then carried the cup to the inner apartments himself and there his wife told him that a little while ago the house-maid had raised a storm for the arrears of her wages, and had finally left, threatening a law-suit.

Poor Subodh heaved a deep sigh and preparing a chelum of tobacco, came back to his office. When at College, he never smoked a hooka, because it was not the fashion to do so. When he joined the bar he found that all the senior pleaders indulged in tobacco and in certain "other things" also. It was only the junior bar who neither smoked nor drank. So Subodh lost no time in providing himself with a hooka. A seer of tobacco of the eight-anna quality