Page:Stories of Bengalee life - Prabhat Kumar Mukerji.pdf/28

16 decorated all over with circular patches composed of jhow leaves, with a bunch of bright flowers of different colours fixed at the centre. To keep the flowers and the foliage fresh, one man was solely employed to bathe them with sprays of water at frequent intervals.

This kept Subodh Babu engaged till one o'clock. He then quickly finished his breakfast, wrote out a petition to the District Superintendent of Police, and ran to the police office. The petition contained a prayer for permission to display some fire-works at his own compound on the next day, in honour of the Lieutenant-Governor's visit to the town. Needless to say that the petition was granted as soon as it was put up before the D. S. P.

Returning home, Subodh again busied himself in looking after the decorations. He took a long piece of wooden plank and pasted it over with white paper. Then with a pair of scissors, he cut out of a sheet of scarlet paper certain letters of the alphabet intended to form a sentence welcoming Mr. Fuller to Dinajshahi. He was carefully fixing these letters on the white board when some young men and boys of the National School paid him a visit. The foremost of them saluted him politely and said—" What is all this, Sir?"

Subodh feigning a baby-like simplicity replied—"The Lieutenant-Governor is coming