Bancharam and Thakchacha took to flattering Matilall to an extraordinary extent, and Matilall, being of a very weak nature, was enthralled by their seductive language, and thought that he had no other friends on earth like them. With a view to increasing his importance they one day said to him:-- "Sir, you are now master: it behoves you to take your seat on the guddee of the master now in heaven: how otherwise will his dignity be maintained?" Matilall was highly delighted at the idea. As a child he had heard bits of the Ramayana and Mahabharata[42], and so it occurred to him that he would be seated on the guddee with the same pomp and circumstance with which Yudhishthira and Ram Chandra were anointed to the throne of their ancestors. Bancharam and Thakchacha saw that Matilall's face shone again with delight at the suggestion they had made, so the next day they settled on a date for the ceremony, and calling together all his kinsmen and friends, seated Matilall upon his father's guddee. In the village the report got about that Matilall had attained to this honour: The news soon spread: it was told in the market-place, in the bazar, at the ghât, and in the fields. A choleric old Brahman, when he heard it remarked, "Oh, he has attained the guddee, has he? What a fine expression! And whose guddee, pray? That of the great Jagat Sett[43], or of Devi Dass Balmukunda?"
When a man of sound sense attains to a high position or to great wealth, he is not liable to be lightly swayed hither and thither; whereas a man who lacks solidity of character, should he attain to a higher position than he is accustomed to, is as unstable as the waters of a flood. And so it proved with Matilall. Day and night, unceasing as a torrent, arose the hubbub of boisterous amusement. His companions did not diminish; on the contrary, their number daily increased, rapidly as the fabulous Raktabij[44].
