have poor persons to do with respect or disrespect? I most put up with it in order to live, but when will the day arrive when the Babu will fall into the same snare as Thakchacha? I know that he has ruined hundreds of people and hundreds of homes, and hundreds he has rendered houseless and destitute. Ah indeed, I have seen a good many attorneys' agents, but never a match for this man! See the sort he is! a man who can swear black is white, a man who can compass anything he likes by his trickery and craft, and yet all the time keeps up his daily religious duties, his Dol Jatra and his Durga Pujah, his alms to the Brahmans and his devotions to his guardian deity! Bad luck to such Hinduism as his, the unmitigated scoundrel!"
Meanwhile Thakchacha, Bancharam and Mr. Butler had all taken their seats: the case had not yet been called on, and their impatience only increased with the delay. Just as it struck five o'clock, Thakchacha was placed before the magistrate, and soon saw that the instruments wherewith he had committed the forgery had been brought into court from the tank at Sialdah, and that some villagers from that quarter were also present in court. After examination into the case, the magistrate passed these orders:-- "The case must be sent up to the High Court: the prisoner cannot be admitted to bail: he must be imprisoned in the Presidency Jail." As soon as these orders had been passed, Bancharam ran up quickly, and shaking the prisoner by the hand, said: "What cause for alarm is there? You don't take me for a child that you cannot trust me? I knew all along that the case would go up to the High Court: that is just what we want."
Thakchacha's face looked all at once pinched and withered from anxiety. The constable seized him by the arms,
