'Oh, you didn't know where she lived?'

'Yes, I knew. They were in Car Street.'

'Did you visit them?'

'Oh, no; they would have thrown me out. Her father was a severe-looking man. I used to hurry off whenever I saw him standing at his gate; but I passed that way several times every day.'

'What was her name?'

He shook his head sadly. 'I don't know, I couldn't ask.'

'You were friends?'

'I don't know. We were friends in the sense that she was used to seeing me at the temple, and once she gave me a piece of coconut offered to the gods. Oh! How I treasured it! But how long can a piece of coconut keep?'

'Was she married?'

'I don't know. I didn't ask. Oh, what excitement it was for me, following her back home every day at a distance of about ten yards. Not a word passed between us, but I was there every day at the temple, and she looked for me, I think. And at her gate she just turned her head slightly and passed in; and I ran straight off to my house and worked on the picture, though it was so difficult without sufficient light.'

'I never knew you were an artist,' Srinivas declared.

'I'm not. I'm only a bank clerk. In those days it was different. I was a student in college. My father was in good health and was a flourishing lawyer. Nobody bothered about what I did in those days all the family responsibility came on me rather suddenly, you know, when my father was stricken with paralysis.'

'What happened to the picture you were working on?'

'Nothing. I had to drop it. She disappeared one day; and with that the picture ended, and I put away my paint-box for ever. The picture is still there at the bottom of a lumber box.'

'What happened to the girl?'

'I missed her one evening at the temple, and then I waited there till late in the evening; I still remember what a fool I must have looked to passers-by. I waited there till about eight p.m. and went up to Car Street. Their house was dark. I later learnt that they had left the town. I lost all trace of them for years. Just today as I sat at my table I saw through the window someone looking like her father going by in a car and at once I left the office to find out if they were back here. I have been all over the town this afternoon, looking here and there. You know this is the first sketch I've done after that day.' He added, half humorously: 'Now that you have that sketch you will keep it with you and keep your eyes open. If ever you see her you must '

'Oh, yes, certainly, I will tell you.'

Ravi's eye lit up with joy at the mention of this possibility. He leaned over the table and gripped my arm and said: 'You will tell me, won't you? You will save me. I promise I will draw hundreds of sketches; only tell me that she is here that you have seen her '

After that Ravi began to drop in at the office now and then, just to ask for news. It was Srinivas's greatest dread lest anyone should disturb him on a Friday the day on which the journal emerged in its final shape. Srinivas was in a state of acute tension on that day, and he dreaded hearing any footsteps on the creaking wooden staircase. But Ravi seemed to choose just those days. Directly his office closed he came there, crossed the threshold, grinning a little nervously. Srinivas looked up with a very brief lifeless smile and returned to the papers on his table, as Ravi seated himself on a stool at the other end of the room. He felt annoyed at this interruption, and he wanted to say aloud: 'Why do you pester me, of all days, today?' But, as a matter of self-discipline, he tried to smother even the thought. Some corner of his mind said: 'Don't be such an uncivilized brute. He is suffering silently. It is your duty, as a fellow being, to give him asylum.' And he looked up at him and murmured: 'Office over?' 'Yes,' the other said, and he timidly added: 'How is the sketch?' Srinivas put away the pen and looked at him with a smile and then took out of a drawer a cardboard file, in which he carefully preserved the sketch. He brought it out and gazed at it, and that transformed the entire situation. The light emanating from the eyes of the portrait touched with an exaltation the artist sitting before him and gave him a new stature. He was no longer a petty, hag-ridden bank clerk, or an unwelcome, thoughtless visitor, but a personality, a creative artist, fit to take rank among the celestials.

Srinivas knew what silent suffering was going on within that shabby frame. He knew that an inspiration had gone out of his life. He had no doubt a home, mother, and brothers and sisters, but all that signified nothing. His heart was not there, any more than it was in the bank. Srinivas felt pity for him and murmured as if apologizing to him: 'You see, this is a day of pressure and so ' And the other replied: 'Yes, yes, I shall be very quiet. Don't disturb yourself; I just came to know how you were faring,' which was false, since Srinivas very well knew that he came there only in the hope of news about his lost love; and Srinivas knew that that was the meaning of the question: 'How is the sketch?' though he pretended to treat it at its face value, and handed the other the sketch and returned to his duties. For a long hour or more Ravi sat there, gazing at the pencil sketch in the fading evening light, as Srinivas grew more and more sunk in his papers and work.

When the final proof had gone Srinivas got up, saying: 'I'm going down to the press.' Ravi handed him back the sketch. Srinivas locked it up in his drawer again, and they went downstairs. The printer looked at him with an irrepressible curiosity. Srinivas explained: 'A friend of mine, my neighbour.' And the printer ostentatiously said: 'Come in, please, come in, you are welcome.' There on the floor were heaped copies of The Banner waiting to be folded and posted. The editor sat down, along with the printer and his urchin, to accomplish this task. The treadle continued to grind away more copies, the printer shouting from where he was: 'Boys, go on slowly watch the ink.'

And this made Srinivas wonder, as he again and again wondered, how many people might be slaving at the task of turning out The Banner beyond that purple screen. For he never could pluck up enough courage to peer into that sanctum, since he always heard the printer declare with considerable emphasis: 'That is the one point on which I'm always very strict the best of my friends and relations have not seen inside there. For instance, you have never seen my machine-room, sir, and how much I appreciate your respecting my principles: I've pointed out your example to hundreds of my customers.' A statement which made Srinivas keep away from that room more than ever. He remembered that at Chidambaram temple there was a grand secret, beyond the semi-dark holy of holies, beyond the twinkling lights of the inner shrine. He had always wondered what it might be; but those who attempted to probe it too deliberately lost their sight, if not their lives. There was a symbolism in it: it seemed to be expressive of existence itself; and Srinivas saw no reason why he should grudge the printer his mysterious existences and mazes beyond the purple curtain.

Ravi sat in a chair scanning the page of a copy of The Banner, while the others were busily packing and gumming. The printer threw him a look once or twice, and then held up a folded paper to him: 'Mister I have not the pleasure of knowing your name '

'Ravi.'

'What a fine name. Mr Ravi, will you please apply this gum lightly here, and press it?' Ravi did as he was told. And the next stage for him was to share the task with the others, and he received no small encouragement from the printer. 'That's right. We must all pull together. Why do I do this when my business should be over with the printing of the copies? It is because I treat it as a national duty; it is neither the editor's nor anybody else's; it is the country's, and every man who calls himself a true son of the country should do his bit for it.' Srinivas felt that this was a flamboyant sentiment. 'No, no, nothing so grand about it, I assure you. It is just a small weekly paper, that is all. It is not right to call everything a national service.' The printer brushed him aside with: 'Modesty has done no good to anyone in this world, as I told a customer only this morning. He started raving over some slight delay in the matter of a visiting card. I told him, "You can offer me a lakh of rupees, but that will not tempt me to do anything other than Banner work on Banner press day".'

Srinivas wended his way home through the dark, ill-lit lanes. Ravi followed him silently. 'Isn't it very late for you?' Srinivas asked. 'It is all the same,' the other remarked. 'I really enjoyed being in your office. In fact, I love this whole place.' He pointed at the soft stabs of feeble, flickering light emanating from door chinks and the windows of humble homes, the only light available here, since the municipal lighting stopped at Market Road. 'I like this lighting. I feel like doing an entire picture with half-lights and shadows some day; I don't know when.'

His aged mother waited at the door anxiously. 'Ravi!' she exclaimed anxiously. 'Why are you so late?' His youngest brother and sister clung to his arms as he turned into his portion of the house without a word.

With a copy of the latest Banner rolled in his hand Srinivas entered his home. His wife sat by the lamplight reading her novel. He held his latest copy to her with the remark: 'I hope you will find something to interest you at least this week.' She hastily opened it, ran her eyes through and put it away with: 'I will read it later,' and she went in to get his dinner ready. She had accommodated herself to his habits fairly well now, and accepted his hours without much grumbling. But she was an uncompromising critic of his journal. She always glanced through the copy he brought in and said: 'Why don't you put in something to interest us?'

'If you keep on reading it, you will find it interesting,' he said, and loathed himself for appearing to be so superior. He felt that in all the welter of economic, municipal, social and eternal questions he was threshing out he was making the journal somewhat heavy and that he was putting himself one remove from his public. This was a pathological mood that seized him now and then, whenever he thought of his journal. He was never very happy on the day his journal came out. He ate his dinner silently ruminating over it. His wife stooped over his leaf to serve him. She had fried potato chips in ghee for him and some cucumber soaked in curd; she had spent the day in the excitement of preparing these and was now disappointed to see him take so little notice of them. She watched him for a moment as he mechanically picked up the bits and stuffed them into his mouth. He was thinking: 'There is some deficiency in The Banner. I wish I knew what it was. Something makes it not quite acceptable to the people for whom it is intended. There is a lot of truth in my wife's complaint.' She watched him for a moment and asked: 'Do you remember what you have just been eating?' He came to himself with a start and smiled uncomfortably. She could not be put off with that. She insisted: 'Tell me what you have eaten off that corner.' He looked at the corner of the leaf helplessly and answered: 'Some fried stuff' 'Yes what vegetable?' He puckered his brow in an effort to recollect. He knew how much it would hurt his wife. He felt rather pained. 'I'm sorry, I was thinking of something else. Was it raw plantain?'

She lightly patted her brow with her hand and said: 'Raw plantain! What an irony! Here I have spent the whole evening ransacking my money-box and procuring you potato for frying, and you see no difference between it and raw plantain. Why should we take all this trouble if it makes so little difference?' He looked up at her. By the dim light he saw that her face was slightly flushed. Clearly she was annoyed at his indifference. He felt angry with himself. 'I don't know the art of family life. There is something lacking in me as in the journal, which leaves a feeling of dissatisfaction in people's minds.' He saw that unless he was careful he might irritate her. He merely said: 'Don't make much of all this,' and cut her short. He went through his meal silently, washed his hands, sat down on his mat with The Banner held close to a lamp; he glanced through it again, line by line, in order to decide what changes he should adopt for the next issue. A corner of his brain was noticing the noise in the kitchen: his wife scrubbing the floor, the clanking of vessels being restored to their places, and the blowing out of the kitchen lamp and finally the shutting of the kitchen door. She paused before him for a moment and then went to her bed and lay down beside their sleeping son. Srinivas noted it and felt pity for her. He viewed her life as it was: a lonely, bare life. He had not the slightest notion how she was spending her days: she probably spent them awaiting his return from the office. She was justified if she felt her grievances were there. 'I have neglected her lately. It seems ages since I touched her, for when all is said and done a husband wife relationship is peculiar to itself, being the most tactile of all human relationships. Perhaps she is wilting away without the caress and the silly idiom softly whispered in the ear.' He hesitated for a moment, undecided whether to follow up this realization. But he put away the question for the moment to finish the work on hand, and reached out for a tablet on which to note down his points.

Srinivas decided to spend the next day completely at home. The day after the issue of the journal must be a holiday. 'I must remember I'm a family man,' he told himself. Next morning he surprised his wife by lying on in bed. His wife woke him up at seven-thirty. 'Don't you have to get up?'

'No, my dear sir!' he said. 'It is a holiday. I won't go near the office today.' She let out a quiet little cry of happiness. 'Will you be at home all day?'

'Absolutely.' She called: 'Ramu, Ramu,' and their little son came in from somewhere. 'What is it, Mother?'

'Your father is not going to his office today.'

'Why, Father?' he asked, looking at him dubiously. Srinivas had no ready answer to give. He was really very pleased to see the effect of his decision. 'Well, now run off; I will sleep for half an hour more and then you will know.'

The boy picked up his top and string and ran out again. Srinivas shut his eyes and let himself drown in the luxury of inactivity. Mixed sounds reached him his wife in the kitchen, his son's voice far off, arguing with a friend, the clamour of assertions and appeals at the water-tap, a pedlar woman crying 'Brinjals and greens' in the street all these sounds mingled and wove into each other. Following each one to its root and source, one could trace it to a human aspiration and outlook. 'The vegetable-seller is crying because in her background is her home and children whose welfare is moulded by the amount of brinjals she is able to scatter into society, and there now somebody is calling her and haggling with her. Some old man very fond of them, some schoolboy making a wry face over the brinjal, diversity of tastes, the housewife striking the greatest measure of agreement, and managing thus seeing in the crier a welcome solution to her problems of house-keeping, and now trying to give away as little of her money as possible in exchange therein lies her greatest satisfaction. What great human forces meet and come to grips with each other between every sunrise and sunset!' Srinivas was filled with great wonder at the multitudinousness and vastness of the whole picture of life that this presented; tracing each noise to its source and to its conclusion back and forth, one got a picture, which was too huge even to contemplate. The vastness and infiniteness of it stirred Srinivas deeply. 'That's clearly too big, even for contemplation,' he remarked to himself, 'because it is in that total picture we perceive God. Nothing else in creation can ever assume such proportions and diversity. This indeed ought to be religion. Alas, how I wish I could convey a particle of this experience to my readers. There are certain thoughts which are strangled by expression. If only people could realize what immense schemes they are components of!' At this moment he heard over everything else a woman's voice saying: 'I will kill that dirty dog if he comes near the tap again.'

'If you speak about my son's dog I will break your pot,' another voice cried. 'Get away both I've been here for half an hour for a glass of water.' Now they formed to him a very different picture. A man's voice ordered: 'I will remove this tap if you are all going to ' It was the voice of the old landlord and quietened the people. One heard only the noise of water falling in a pot. Next moment the old man appeared in the doorway, peeped in and called: 'Mister Srinivas. Oh, still sleeping? Not keeping well?' He walked up to Srinivas lying in bed and stood over him: 'I thought you would be getting ready to go out.' He sat down on the floor, beside his bed, and said: 'I tell you, I sometimes feel I ought to lock up all my houses and send away all those people. They seem to be so unworthy of any consideration.'

'What consideration do you show them?'

'I've given them a water-tap which they have not learnt to use without tearing each other. I sometimes feel so sick of seeing all these crudities that I blame God for keeping me in this world so long.'

'If it makes you so sick, why don't you put up a couple of taps more?'

'Give them twenty more taps, they would still behave in the same manner,' he said irrelevantly. 'I have known days when people managed without any tap at all; there used to be only a single well for a whole village. It doesn't depend upon that, but people have lost all neighbourliness in these days, that is all.' He went on with further generalizations. Srinivas felt that it would be useless to remain in bed any longer; he got up, rolled up his bed, and picked his green-handled toothbrush and paste from a little wall-shelf and unscrewed the toothpaste top. The old man remarked: 'What is the world coming to? Everybody has taken a fancy to these toothbrushes; they are made of pig's tail, I'm told. Why should we orthodox, pure Aryans go in for these things? Have you ever tried Margosa or Banyan twigs? They are the best and they were not fools who wrote about them in the shastras. They knew more science than any of us today you see my teeth.' He bared his teeth. 'How do you like them?'

'Most of them are missing,' Srinivas said.

'Never mind the missing ones, but they stayed long enough when they did. And do you know what I've used?' Srinivas didn't wait for him to finish his sentence, but made his way towards the bathroom.

He stayed in the bathroom just a little longer, hoping that the old man would have left by then. But he found him still there when he returned, sitting just as he had left him. He came rubbing a towel over his face, and the old man asked: 'What are these towels, looking like some hairy insect? Must be very costly.'

'H'm, yes, if you are still thinking of your own days,' said Srinivas.

'You are right. Do you know, I used to buy twenty towels to a rupee, the Malayalam variety? I'm still using some of them I bought in those days.'

'It was due to bargains like yours that no industry ever found it possible to raise its head in our country.'

'You are right,' said the old man without comprehending the other's statement. 'They should not try to rob us of all we have with their prices.' Srinivas moved to the window-sill, on which was fixed a small looking glass; there was a small wooden comb beside it. He ran it through his greying hair mechanically as by immemorial custom, wondering what comment this was going to provoke in the old man. It was not long in coming. He said with a cynical leer: 'Fancy men parting and combing their hair like women! How beautiful and manly it was in those days when at your age you had only a very small tuft and shaved off the head. That's why people in those days were so clear-headed.'

'Yes, but we don't get the same amount of co-operation from our barbers these days. That is the worst of it,' said Srinivas. 'And so we are compelled to go from stupidity to stupidity.'

'The old man laughed at the joke and said: You have not yet asked my purpose in visiting you today.' 'Just a minute,' Srinivas said and went into their small kitchen. His wife was at the little oven, frying a rice-cake. Her eyes seemed swollen with smoke. But she seemed to be in great spirits. She was sitting with her back to him, humming a tune to herself as she turned the cake. The place was fragrant with the smell of burning ghee. Srinivas stood in the doorway for a moment and listened. 'That is a nice bit of singing,' he said. She turned to him with a smile. 'I'm making these cakes for you. Don't drink up your coffee yet.' He had never been given tiffin in the morning except today, and he understood that she was celebrating his holiday. He was disturbed for a moment by the thought that his holiday pleased her so much more than his working when all his pride and seriousness were bestowed on the latter. 'Your meal will be late today,' she explained. 'I'm going to give you Aviyal for your dinner; Ramu has gone out to the market to buy the vegetables for it.' A stew of over a dozen vegetables; Srinivas was very fond of it: his mother used to feed him with it whenever he came home during vacation in those days: how the girl remembered his particular taste in all these things and with what care she tended him now. He was touched for a moment. 'But all this puts an additional burden on one in life,' he told himself. He asked: 'I've a guest; can you manage some coffee for him?'

'Yes, who is he?' He held the door slightly open for her to see through. 'Oh, that man!' she exclaimed. 'Why has he come? Have you not paid the rent?' She added: 'Not enough coffee for two.' Srinivas said: 'Hush! Don't be so cantankerous. Poor fellow! Put out the sitting-planks.'

The old man was overjoyed when he heard the invitation. He became nearly incoherent with joy. He was torn between the attraction of the offer and shyness. For the first time Srinivas observed that the man could be moved by shyness. 'No, no, I never eat anywhere. Oh, don't trouble yourself about it ... No, no ...' he said, but all the same got up and followed Srinivas into the kitchen. He grinned affably at Srinivas's wife and commented flatteringly: 'I have always told a lot of people to come and observe this lady for a model. How well she looks after the house. I wish modern girls were all like her.' Srinivas gently propelled him to a plank, on which he sat down. He observed from his wife's face that she was pleased with the compliment, and Srinivas felt that the old man's coffee was now assured him. His wife came out with a tumbler of water and two leaves and set them in front of them. She then served a couple of cakes on each leaf, and the old man rubbed his hands with the joy of anticipation. At a signal from Srinivas he fell to; and Srinivas wondered how long it was since the other had had any food. 'What do you eat at nights?' he asked testingly. The old man tore off a piece of cake and stuffed it in his mouth and swallowed it before he answered, shaking his head: 'I'm not a youth. Time was when I used to take three meals a day three full meals a day in addition to tiffin twice a day. Do you know '

'That's remarkable,' agreed Srinivas admiringly. 'But now what do you do?'

'I'm a Sanyasi, my dear young man and no true Sanyasi should eat more than once a day,' he said pompously. He ate the cakes with great relish. When a tumbler of coffee was placed beside him he looked lovingly at it and said: 'As a Sanyasi I have given up coffee completely, but it is a sin not to accept something offered,' he said.

'You are right,' Srinivas replied, and added: 'So drink it up now.' The old man raised the tumbler, tilted back his head, and poured the fluid down his throat; he put down the tumbler and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He shook his head appreciatively and murmured: 'If somebody is going to make coffee as good as this, it will prove very difficult for people like me to who wish give it up.' Srinivas's wife acknowledged the compliment with a smile and asked, half peeping out of the doorway: 'When are you going to give us another tap?'

'Oh!' cried the old man. 'How many people ask me this question every morning!'

'I have to fill up every vessel at three in the morning, and even then people try to be there earlier,' she said. The old man made a noise of sympathy, clicking his tongue, got to his feet and passed on to the washing-room without a word. After cleaning his hands and face he went on to the front room and sat down on the mat. Srinivas still sat on the plank, saying something to his wife, and the old man's voice reached him from the hall. 'Just one small piece of areca-nut, please; cannot do without it after eating anything one bad habit which I'm not able to conquer ...'

Srinivas asked his wife: 'Have you apiece of areca-nut anywhere?' His wife muttered: 'The old man is making himself a thorough guest today, although he is so indifferent about the water-tap.' She went over to a cupboard, took out a small wicker-basket and gave Srinivas a pinch of spiced areca-nut. Srinivas transferred it immediately to his mouth. 'Fine stuff,' he said.

'It's not for you!' she cried. She handed him another pinch and said: 'Let him demand them immediately if he wants betel leaves also.'

Srinivas felt himself in a leisurely mood the sort of relaxation he had never experienced for months now. 'Even an oven is given its moments of rest to cool,' he told himself. 'It's senseless to go on working and forgoing this delicious feeling of doing nothing,' he muttered to himself, as he carried the pinch of areca-nut to his guest. The old man sprinkled it on his tongue and shut his eyes in an ecstasy of relish. 'You don't want betel leaves and lime or tobacco?' 'Oh, no,' the old man replied with a shudder. 'Do you want to see me make a fool of myself, with my lips reddened with betel juice at my age!' He seemed to view it as a deadly sin, and Srinivas left it at that and began to wonder what he should do next. The old man now said, looking up at him, moving away a little on the mat: 'Won't you sit down for a moment?' Srinivas remained silent, wondering if he could conjure up some excuse which might be both truthful and tactful and free him of the other's company. But the old man followed up: 'You have not yet asked me what business brought me here so early in the day. I have come here on a definite business.' Srinivas sat down beside him, leaned on the wall and stretched his legs, saying: 'Do you mind my stretching before an elder?' 'Not at all. It is your house as long as you pay the rent regularly,' he replied. He bent over and said: 'Do you know, I have a granddaughter of marriageable age?'

'I heard only recently that you had a daughter. How is it none of them come this way?'

'Oh ' he wriggled in despair. 'Don't go into all that now. I have a granddaughter, that is all I wish to say. I would forget my daughter, if possible. That is an ungrateful brood,' he said.

'How many sons and daughters have you?' Srinivas persisted relentlessly. The old man glared at him angrily for a moment and asked: 'Won't you leave that subject alone?'

'No,' Srinivas replied, 'I have got to know. I'm not prepared to hear about your granddaughter unless you tell me first about your daughters and sons.'

'Oh, if that is so I will tell you. I have three sons and two daughters; one daughter is in this town the other daughter is in Karachi: I'm not concerned with her, because her husband is a customs officer, and she thinks it is not in keeping with her status to think of her father and the rest of us. It is over twelve years since she wrote. She pretends that she is of Persian royal descent, I suppose, and not an ordinary South Indian.' He laughed at his own joke and continued: 'Why should I care? I don't. It saves me postage to forget her. Sometimes her mother used to fret about her, and for her sake I used to waste a postcard now and then. But since the old lady's death I have forgotten that daughter ... I'm not talking about my second daughter.'

'You have not told me anything about your two sons.'

'Oh, won't you leave them alone? Why do you trouble a Sanyasi like me with such reminders?'

'Where are they?' Srinivas asked.

'In heaven or hell, what do I care?' the old man replied. 'I refuse to talk about them: they are all an ungrateful, rapacious brood; why talk of them?'

'Has this second daughter of yours a daughter?' At the mention of the granddaughter his eyes glittered with joy. 'You are absolutely right. Oh, what an angel she is! Whenever I want to see her I go to the Methodist girls' school, where she reads, talk to her during the recess, and come away.' His tone fell to cringing: 'I wish to see her married. I have set apart five thousand rupees for her marriage. Let them produce a good husband for her, and the amount will go to her; and they must manage the wedding celebrations as well as the dowry within that amount.'

'What is your son-in-law?'

'He is a teacher in the same school.'

'So you are bound to see him also when you go there?'

'H'm, I never go in. I call her up from outside, see her for a moment, and go away. I don't talk to that fellow nor to that wife of his.'

'What did they do?'

'They neglected their mother and wouldn't spend even an anna when she was ill. I had to pay the doctor's bill one hundred and seventy-five rupees all myself. Not an anna was contributed by any of them. Do you know how much the old woman doted on them? I was always telling her that she was spoiling them. But she wouldn't listen. After her death I cut off the entire brood completely. I have no use for ungrateful wretches of that type. Do you agree with me or not?' Srinivas slurred over the question. The old man said: 'For this granddaughter of mine, why don't you find a bridegroom? I may die any moment. I'm very old, and as they say in Gita He quoted a Sanskrit verse from Bhagavad Gita regarding mortality. He shrank his eyes to small slits and begged: 'I want to see this girl married.'

Srinivas said: 'I don't know what I can do.'

'My tenant in that portion Ravi, isn't he your friend? I have often seen him going with you. I observe all things. Why don't you persuade him to give me his horoscope? I think he will be a good match for this girl.'

Srinivas could hardly believe his ears. At the sound of Ravi the entire picture of his complicated life flashed across his mind and he didn't know what to say. 'Why have you pitched on Ravi?'

'Because I have observed him, and he is in a respectable job.'

'But he has a very large number of dependants.'

'Yes, that's a fact. But I shall probably reduce his rent and give him another room. What can we do about his people? We will see about it all later. But will you kindly speak to him about my granddaughter and get me his horoscope? Ever since I saw him I have been thinking what a perfect match he would be for the girl. Tell him that the girl is beautiful and reads in sixth form.' Srinivas promised to do his best, without much conviction.

The printer sat down on the stool before Srinivas's table and said: 'I rather liked the friend you brought in the other evening who is he?' Srinivas told him about him. He took out the sketch and passed it on to the other for his scrutiny, saying: 'Do you know, there are very few in India who can do that with a pencil?'

'Fine girl,' the printer agreed, shaking his head, as if appreciating a piece of music or a landscape. 'Who is she?'

'God knows. They were in Car Street, and they are no longer there. That's all he knows. He lost sight of her, and will not draw till he finds her again. He drew this because he thought they were back here.' The printer pondered over it deeply. 'What a fool to be running after an unknown girl a man must shut his eyes tight if it proves useless to look any longer. That's my principle in life.' This was the first time Srinivas had heard the other talk in this strain. He had known very little of his family life, except that sometimes he referred to his home, away there by a cross-road in the new extension, containing a wife and five children. Srinivas opened his lips to ask something and hesitated; the printer seemed to read his mind, and said with a smile: 'I'm not such a bad husband, sir, as you may think!' He tossed the picture across the table and said: 'I thought there was something funny about that young man these artists are futile: they can neither get along with their jobs properly nor forget a face.'

'But,' Srinivas said, 'I wish he could get that girl back, if it is only to make him go on with his drawing.'

'You think it is so important!' asked the printer. 'Why, I can get a score of fellows to do this sort of thing.' He scrutinized it again, making an honest effort to see what there might be in it. 'Well, anyway, it is not his profession; what is there to sorrow about?' Srinivas stared at him for a moment and rapped the table with his palm as if to get the other's fullest attention. 'Don't you see what a great artist we are losing? He is an artist; don't you see that?'

'Oh!' the other exclaimed, as if the truth were dawning upon him for the first time. 'Oh!' He added: 'Yes you are right.' He looked at the sketch intently as if comprehending it better now. 'You just leave him to me; I will tackle him; you will see him drawing these pictures one after another till you cry "Enough. No more"!'

A few days later, going down to the press one evening, he saw Ravi sitting in a chair opposite the printer. Srinivas was rather surprised. Ravi, who would usually come up and occupy his stool, had now been short-circuited by the printer. By the look on the artist's face Srinivas understood that they had been in conclave for a long while. The moment Srinivas appeared the artist rose, gripped his arm and cried, pointing at the other: 'Oh, he knows, he knows!' His voice trembled with joy and his hands shook. The printer said, with his eyes twinkling: 'He has promised to come and draw a picture of my little son tomorrow evening. Would you like to have any done for you?'

When he went home the artist accompanied him. The printer saw them off at the door, effusively as ever. His parting word to the artist as they stepped into the street was: 'The baby will be ready to receive you at seven o'clock sharp. Fourth cross-road, new extension. I will wait at the gate.'

The artist chatted happily all the way. 'Tomorrow I must leave home pretty early a couple of hours at the printer's house and from there on to the office direct. I shall be just there in time; I hope that child is sketchable. What sort of child is he; have you seen?'

'No,' replied Srinivas. 'And what else did he tell you?'

'Oh, my friend. I never knew I was so near help. All that I want is just another look at that girl, and that will transform my entire life. I never knew that our printer was a man who could be so helpful. What a fine man he is!' Srinivas didn't like to pursue the matter further and remained silent. He somehow felt disinclined to speak about the printer. When they passed the last crossing in Market Road and turned down Anderson Lane he ventured to ask: 'What would be your reaction if someone seriously proposed his daughter to you?' 'I would kick him,' the other replied promptly and recklessly. Srinivas left it at that, feeling that he had discharged the duty laid upon him by the old man.

The old man appeared just as he was hurrying to his office. He turned the corner of the street, and the old man hailed him from under the street-tap where he had been bathing. 'Mister Editor! Oh! Mister Editor,' he called from the tap, and his cry rang past a ring of spectators waiting for the tap to be free. Srinivas turned and wished he could clear the entire street at a jump. But it was not possible. The old man came up to him, dripping with water. He shook his head disapprovingly. 'No, no, you must not be so very inconsiderate to an old man.' Srinivas tarried and said: 'I'm in a hurry.'

'Who is not?' asked the old man promptly. 'Every creature is in a hurry, every ant is in a hurry, every bird is in a hurry, every fellow I meet is in a hurry, the sun is in a hurry, the moon is in a hurry all except this slave of God, I suppose.' Srinivas was too much engrossed in his own thoughts to say anything in reply. He said: 'Now I will be off. I will see you this evening.' And he tried to cover the rest of the street at one stride. But the old man would not let him go. He almost cantered behind him and caught up with him. He was panting with the effort. His chest heaved. Srinivas felt that if the old man dropped down dead on the spot, the responsibility would be his, and made a quick decision to change his route from that day. The old man panted: 'Have you forgotten that I have such a thing as a granddaughter?'

'I haven't,' said Srinivas. 'I remember your request. But the time is not yet.'

'Are you going to tell me that you have not seen the boy?' Srinivas paused to consider if he might make such an evasion. But the old man went on: 'Don't say that, because some evenings ago I saw you both going home. Didn't you turn the street together? I may be old, but not too old to see by street light when there is something to see.' Srinivas felt exasperated. 'Why is this man plaguing me like this?' He had left home a few minutes earlier in order to clear up some heavy work in the office. He looked hard at the old man and said: 'The boy doesn't seem to be in a mood to marry anyone, that is all.'

The old man gripped his arm and said: 'Do you think I believe a word of what you say?' He gazed on Srinivas's face with his eyes half covered with water drops and attempted to express a merry twinkling at the same time: 'Young fellows are always shy about marriage. They will not say so. In fact, do you know, when they came and proposed I should marry, I tried to hide myself in the paddy barn on the wedding day. I was just twelve '

'But he is twenty-eight '