Page:Tales of Bengal (S. B. Banerjea).djvu/108

72 charge which was quite without foundation. Shám Babu was strictly honest, and besides, the opportunities within the reach of clerks employed by a private firm are not worth mentioning.

After settling down at Kadampur he cudgelled his brains for some means of increasing his slender resources. Friends advised him to try farming, or start a business in lending grain to cultivators. Neither trade was to his liking. Clerks are of little use outside their own sphere; and Shám Babu was too soft-hearted to succeed as a village Shylock. A matter of pressing importance was to establish his son Susil, who had passed the First Arts examination and was hanging about the Government offices at Ghoria, in the hope of securing a post. Shám Babu took advantage of his late employer's offer and sent the young man off to Calcutta armed with a sheaf of certificates. To his great delight, Susil was appointed clerk on Rs. 25—a magnificent start, which relieved his father's most pressing anxiety.

Shám Babu had begun life with a small patrimony which was slowly increased by savings from his monthly pay. He was worth nearly Rs. 10,000, the whole of which was lent by him to a trader named Gopál Datta, certified by Shám Babu's brother-in-law Hari to be thoroughly trustworthy. This Gopál