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Ram Chandra himself offered a funeral cake of sand to his father's shade, and if you have to abridge your expenditure in this respect, it is idle to mourn over that: but to do nothing at all is not good. Ah, sir, you must know that your father's name resounds far and wide! by virtue of his name the tiger and the cow drink at the same pool! can his shraddha then be like the shraddha of a poor and insignificant man? Even those encumbered with debt must avoid the world's reproach." Matilall could not comprehend the drift of all this talk. These men, while nominally manifesting their bosom friendship as kinsmen for a kinsman, were really in their inmost hearts eager to have a gorgeous shraddha ceremony, and themselves to get the management of it, so that they might gain importance thereby; but they would never give a plain answer to a plain question. One of them said: "It will never do not to have the shorash, with the usual display of silver and other presents" Another remarked: "You will find it very hard to keep the world's respect, if you do not have a dan-sagar, with costly presents of every kind for all comers." Another said: "It will be a very poor sort of shraddha, if there is no dampati-baran for poor Brahmans." And another said: "It will be a great disgrace if pandits are not invited to attend, and a distribution of alms not made to the poor." There was a good deal of wrangling over the affair. "Who wants your advice?" -- "Who told you to argue?" -- "Who listens to your conclusions?" -- "Nobody respects you in the village: it is only in your own opinion that you are the head-man," such remarks were freely bandied about from one to the other. Each of those present indeed was in his own estimation the most important man there, and each man thought what he had to say the conclusion of the whole matter.