withdrawn for the ceremonies performed by the women of the family. The women, old and young, all surrounded him, their ornaments jingling as they moved about They were horrified when they saw the bridegroom. During the performance of the ceremony, when bride and bridegroom gaze into each other's eyes, he was obliged to put his spectacles on: the women all burst out laughing and began to make fun of him. He flew into a passion and called out, 'Thakchacha! Thakchacha!' Thakchacha was just on the point of running into the women's apartments, when the people belonging to the party of the bride's father got him on the ground. Bancharam Babu was pugnacious, and got well thrashed. Bakreswar Babu was hustled about so that he resembled a pigeon with swollen neck. When I saw the disturbance, I left the bridegroom's party and joined that of the bride. What became of everybody in the end I cannot say, but Thakchacha had to return home in a dooly. You all know the saying-- 'In avarice is sin, and in sin death.' Now listen to the poetry I have composed":--
Any counsel his parasite pours in his ears,
Baburam, the old dotard, as gospel reveres.
Still dreaming of riches by day and by night,
No thought ever stirs him of wrong or of right.
In saving and getting he squanders his life,
And lately it struck him, "I'll marry a wife!"
"Fie! you're old," cry his friends, "and what can you need more?
"You've your wife and your children, with grandsons in store?"
But their kindly advice for themselves they may keep"
At a trifle like bigamy, fortunes go cheap!
So all in a flurry he orders a boat,
And with kinsmen and servants is shortly afloat.
Good Beni's remonstrance he haughtily spurns,
Who home to his rice unrewarded returns.
Becharam is disgusted, and toddles away:
"Thakchacha, you scoundrel!" was all he could say.
But the Barnagore women such volleys of jeers
Exchange through their chudders where'er he appears,
