Page:The Spoilt Child.djvu/138



house was on the outskirts of the city: on either side of it were filthy tanks, and in front the shrine of some guardian saint. Inside the enclosure was a storehouse for grain, and ducks and fowls were running about the yard. Rogues of every description were in the habit of assembling at the house early every morning.

Thakchacha could assume many characters in the conduct of his business: he could be gentle or passionate: he could laugh or frown: he could make a parade of virtue or a show of force, with equal facility[32]. When the business of the day was over, he would take his bath and his food, and then sit by his wife and smoke: and as he smoked the tobacco would gurgle and hiss in its well-chased bowl of Bidri ware. Their conversation was generally on their mutual joys and sorrows.

Thakchacha's wife was held in great repute amongst the women of the district. They were firmly convinced that she was well versed in religious ritual and incantations, in the art of making bad qualities good, in mesmerising, in causing even death or timely disappearances, in magic and sorcery, and in fact in every variety of the black art. For this reason women of all classes of life came constantly to her to hold secret converse. An old proverb has it: "As the god, so the goddess," and Thakchacha and his wife were a well-matched pair: the husband got his living by his wits, and the wife by her reputed learning.