in doors and out of doors hand in hand, or with their arms round each other's necks. Whenever Becharam's wife saw them, she would say: "They are three brothers, sons of one mother."
Neither children nor youths nor old men can remain for any length of time passive or engaged in one kind of occupation: they must have some way of dividing the twenty-four hours of the day and night between a variety of occupations. In the case of children, special arrangements will have to be made to ensure their having a combination of amusement with instruction. Neither continuous play nor continuous work is a good thing. The chief object of all recreation is to enable a man to pay greater attention to his labour afterwards, his body refreshed by relaxation. The mind only becomes enfeebled by unbroken exertion, and anything learnt in that condition simply floats about on the surface without sinking into it. But in all games there is this to be considered, that those only are beneficial in which there is a certain amount of bodily exertion; no benefit is to be derived from cards or dice or any pastimes of that kind: the only effect of such amusements is to increase the natural tendency to idleness, which is the source of such a variety of evils. Just as there is no good to be derived from unceasing work, so by continuous play the intelligence is apt to get blunted, for thereby the body only is strengthened, the mind is not disciplined at all; and as the latter must be engaged in something or other, is it to be wondered at that in such a condition it should adopt an evil rather than a good course? It is thus that many boys come to grief.
Matilall and his companions Haladhar and Gadadhar roamed about everywhere like so many Brahmini bulls, doing just as they pleased and paying no attention to any one. They were constantly amusing themselves either with cards
