great Durga Festival coming off at home, the image not yet decorated, or even coloured, and without the wherewithal to pay for it: I am quite at a loss to know what to do. A few rupees just now would have been exceedingly serviceable, no matter how they might have been got. I could have given some to my master, some I would have kept for myself: it would have been a very simple thing to cook the accounts by making a false entry or two. Who could have anticipated that the heavens would have burst asunder and fallen upon my head like this?" Then, just for the look of the thing, he shed a few tears before the servants, weeping really for the loss of his dear rupees. The officiating Brahmans, seeing him there, came and sat down by him. The wearers of the sacred thread are, as a rule, a very astute sort of people: it is hard to get at their thoughts. Some began to recount the good qualities of Baburam Babu: others complained that they were now orphans, bereft of their father: others, unable to restrain their greed of gain, remarked: "There is no time now for mourning: we must bestir ourselves to ensure Baburam Babu's happiness in the next world: he was a man of no ordinary importance." Without paying much attention to what they were saying, Bancharam Babu smoked away, and nodded his head: he knew the old proverb: "What advantage does the crow get, even if the bael is ripe?" It seemed as if he had got to the end of all things, so thoroughly broken-hearted was he: he could only sigh as he listened to what was being said: he had no plans, nor, alas, could he think of anybody to fleece! The idea once occurred to him that he might make something by informing the family that some fine portions of their property might be lost to them unless they held a very careful enquiry, but then he considered that his words would be only wasted if he spoke when their grief was so fresh.
