Page:Stories of Bengalee life - Prabhat Kumar Mukerji.pdf/229



Y people were insisting upon my spending the Christmas vacation at Madhupur, where we possessed a small bungalow. So I put my things together, and went to Howrah Station to catch the three o'clock afternoon train.

What a crowd there was that day! But, fortunately, it was composed of the gentry only—for the most part young men in fair white raiment, pleasantly perfumed; their faces joyous, lit up with smiles. They looked as if they were young husbands going by this train to the houses of their fathers-in-law. Such an assemblage was not tiresome, but the contrary.

The train started. The young men filled the air of the compartment with loud laughter and the smoke of their cigarettes. The train continued to be thronged as far as Hooghly,—after that the crowd began to lessen. At Pundooah, a stout old man entered our carriage. On his head he wore a black woollen comforter twisted round like a turban, and on his nose a pair of silver-framed spectacles. A couple of old-fashioned shawls covered his person. He wore English shoes over