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 another: I shall have to employ a good deal of coaxing and wheedling, and all my arts of persuasion will have to be called into requisition. If I can only once climb to the top of the Tree of Fortune, I will simply shower rupees down: just now we are very short of cash, and we cannot afford that in a business like ours; by a sudden dash like this we may safely reckon on getting something."

Meanwhile in the Vaidyabati house, propitiatory sacrifices were being offered: musical instruments of all kinds were braying and jangling. The crash of drums, the blare of brass trumpets, the clashing of cymbals, astonished the dawn. In the great hall of worship offerings for Matilall's welfare were in progress. The Brahmans were variously occupied in reciting the hymn to Durga, working up Ganges clay into representations of Siva, or offering leaves of the sacred basil to the holy shalgram in the centre of the hall. Others, deep in thought, their heads resting on their hands, were saying to each other: "How about our divine Brahmanhood now? so far from having saved Matilall, our master too must now have perished with him. If he was aboard yesterday, the boat must have been lost in the storm last night: there can be no doubt about that. Anyhow the family are ruined: the young Babu will now be proclaimed master, and what kind of man he is likely to turn out no one can say: our prospects of gain appear now to be very remote." One of the Brahmans present said very quietly: "Why are you so anxious? nobody is depriving us of our gains. Apply to our own case the simile of the saw cutting the shell. The saw will cut chips off the shell whether it moves forward or whether it moves backwards: even if the master be no more, there will have to be a gorgeous shraddha. The master is not a young man, and if the old lady objects to spending much on his shraddha, everybody will abuse her." Another remarked: "Ah, my