'No one prevents you from going and asking her again.'

'You invited her properly, I suppose,' Margayya said.

She flared up: 'I have abased myself sufficiently.'

'That's all right, that's all right,' Margayya said, scenting danger.

His brother and seven of his children came and presided over the function. He presented young Balu with a silver box, and at the sight of it Margayya felt very proud and moved. He asked his son to prostrate himself before his uncle ceremoniously and receive his blessings, after which the boy started out for his school in a procession.

Margayya's son had a special standing in the school, for Margayya was the school secretary. Teachers trembled before him, and the headmaster stood aside while he passed. They knew Margayya was a powerful man and also that he could be a pleasant and kindly man, who listened to their troubles when they met him at home to discuss small promotions or redress. He listened to them most attentively and promised to do his best, but hardly remembered anything of it next moment. This was purely a defensive mechanism. He simply could not keep in his head all the requests that people brought to him each day. The utmost he could do for them was to be pleasant to them. When they pestered him too much he merely said, 'See here, I took up this work as a sort of service for our people, but this is not my only occupation. As a matter of fact I did not want all this business, but it was thrust upon me and they wouldn't take my refusal.'

He spoke like the president of a political party after an election campaign, but his place on the school board did not come to him unsought nor was it thrust upon him. On the day he admitted Balu to the school he realized that his son would not have a chance of survival unless he admitted himself also to the school. Within fifteen days of the Schooling Ceremony he heard reports that Balu was being caned almost every day, was having his ears twisted by all and sundry, and that even the school peon pushed him about rudely. He loved his son and it seemed to him that the school was thoroughly in the wrong. He went there once or twice to rectify matters and was told by the headmaster that it was all false and perhaps the boy deserved all that and more. They treated him in an off-hand manner which angered him very much. They almost hinted that he might take his son away. At the end of the term Balu came home with his progress card marked zero. Margayya decided to take charge of the school.

He was a busy business man who could not afford the time for unprofitable honorary work, but he felt he ought to sacrifice himself for the sake of his son's educational progress. He wanted Balu to grow up into an educated man, graduating out of a college and probably going for higher studies to Europe or America. He had immense confidence in himself now. He could undertake any plan with ease; he could shape his son's future as if it were just so much clay in his hand. His son might become a great government official or something of the kind, or indeed anything in ten years, if this cursed school were not in his way ... He watched for the next election time. It was a strategy of extraordinary complexity and meant expense too; but he did not grudge it. He felt that no expense was too great for a child's future, and slipped into the place of a member whom he had persuaded to retire. After that one could notice a great improvement in Balu's career. He never lost his place in the class, and the teachers seemed to have adjusted themselves to his way of thinking. In addition Margayya picked up a home tutor for him. He made this selection with great astuteness. He kept an eye on all the teachers, and sounded his son himself as to whom he would like to have as teacher at home, to which Balu promptly replied, 'No one.'

Margayya said, 'You are not to say that. You must have a home teacher. Tell me whom you like most in your school.'

After a great deal of persuasion, the boy said 'Nathaniel.'

Margayya knew him to be a mild Christian gentleman whom all the children loved because he told them numerous stories, let them do what they pleased, never frowned at them even once, and taught them history and such innocuous subjects rather than mathematics. Margayya decided at once to eliminate this gentleman from his list as a home tutor. 'It is no good appointing a sheep to guard a tiger cub,' he told himself. He suddenly asked: 'Who is the teacher that beats the boys most?'

'The science attender,' replied the young innocent.

'I don't mean him,' Margayya said, 'I mean among the teachers.'

'But the science attender says he is also a teacher. Do you know, father, he beats any boy who doesn't call him "Sir"?'

'He does that, does he!' exclaimed Margayya angrily. 'You go and tell him that he is merely a miserable science peon and nothing more, and if he tries to show off I will cut off his tail.'

'Has he a tail, father?' asked Balu. 'Oh, I didn't notice.' He burst into a laugh, and laughed so loudly and rolled about so much that his father was forced to say, 'Stop that ... Don't make all that noise.' The vision of the science attender with a tail behind only made Balu roll about more and more. He made so much noise that his mother came out of the kitchen to ask, 'What is the matter?'

'Mother,' the boy screamed, 'father thinks that our science teacher has a tail, the science teacher has a tail ...' He danced about in sheer joy at this vision, and Margayya could not get anything more out of him. The boy was too wild. He left him alone for the moment but questioned him again later and found that the teacher he most detested was Mr Murti, the arithmetic and English teacher, an old man who always carried a cane in his hand, shaved his head and covered it with a white turban, and wore a long coat. To Margayya it seemed to be a very satisfactory picture of a teacher. None of your smart young men with bare heads and crop, with their entertaining stories and so forth. He immediately asked Murti to see him at his house and fixed him up at once as Balu's teacher at home and a sort of supervisor for him at school too. His own professional work was taking up more and more of his time each day; he wanted another agency to protect the interests of his son at school.

Murti was only too happy to accept this job since he earned only twenty-five rupees at school and the ten rupees that Margayya arbitrarily offered him was most welcome, as was the perpetual contact he would have with the Secretary of the School Board day in and day out. It enhanced his status at school among his colleagues and also with the headmaster, who, if he wanted to sound the secretary's state of mind over any important question at school, called aside Murti and spoke to him in whispers. All this Murti welcomed, but he also lost something in the bargain, and that was his power over his pupil, Balu. He knew that although Margayya had asked him to handle him as he would any other boy, the plan would not work. He had far too much experience with people who had an only child and a lot of money. They never meant what they said with regard to their children. No one lost his head so completely over a question of discipline as the parent of an only child. Murti did not want to offend the young boy and lose his favour so that one day he might tell his father, 'I won't be taught by that teacher.' On the other hand he did not want the father to feel that he was not able to handle Balu. So he walked warily. He tried to earn the goodwill and co-operation of the pupil himself so that his job might be easy. He gave him many gifts of sweets and pencils and rubbers if he did a sum well and forbore his mischief, and treated him generally as a friend. The scheme worked, although the boy was on the verge of blackmailing his teacher whenever he set him more sums than he cared to do. But on the whole the relationship was successful and Balu progressed steadily from class to class and reached the Fourth Form.

The teacher and the pupil were like old partners now, seasoned partners who knew each other's strong points and weak points. Margayya stuck to his School Board election after election. He boasted to his friends and relations whenever he found a chance: 'Balu is just thirteen you know, and in two years ...' He gloated over a vision of his son passing into a college. He would give him a separate study in the new house he was planning to build in New Extension. He would buy table lamps with green shades; they said that a green shade was good for the eyes. He would send him to Albert Mission College, although it was at the other end of the town, far away from New Extension. He would buy him a car. People would look at him and say, 'Well, there goes Margayya's son. Lucky fellows, these sons of business men.'

Margayya had converted the small room into a study for Balu. Every morning Margayya carried out an inspection of this room in order to see that his son learnt civilized ways and kept his things in their proper places, but he always found the mat not spread out on the floor, but stood up against a corner half-rolled, his books scattered on the floor, and his little desk full of stones, feathers, cigarette foils and empty packets. These were all collected from a small shop made of dealwood planks near by which had recently been set up by a man from Malabar. Margayya felt unhappy when he saw the condition of this room. In his view a study had to be a very orderly place, with books arrayed on one side, and the clothes of the scholar folded and in their place on the wire stretched across the wall. Margayya had secured a small framed picture of the Goddess Saraswathi, the Goddess of Learning and Enlightenment, sitting beside her peacock and playing on the strings of a veena. He hung it in the study and enjoined his son ceremoniously to pray to the Goddess every morning as soon as he got up from bed. He inquired untiringly, 'Boy, have you made your prostrations before the Goddess?'

'Yes,' the boy answered, and ran in and performed them in a moment, then came back to the hall and just hung about staring at the sky or into the kitchen. Margayya felt angry. He told his son sharply: 'God is not like your drill class, to go and dawdle about half-heartedly. You must have your heart in it.'

'I prostrated all right, father.'

'Yes, but your mind was where?'

'I was thinking of... of...' He considered for a moment, and added, 'My lessons,' knowing it would please his father. But it did not seem to have that effect.

'When you prostrate, you must not prostrate so fast.'

'How long can I lie on the floor prostrate?' the boy asked sullenly. 'I can't be lying there all the time.'

'If you grumble so much about your duties to the Goddess, you will never become a learned man, that is all,' Margayya warned him.

'I don't care,' said the boy, very angry at the thought of an exacting Goddess.

'You will be called a useless donkey by the whole world, remember,' Margayya said, his temper rising. 'Learn to talk with more reverence about the gods ... Do you know where I was, how I started, how I earned the favour of the Goddess by prayer and petition? Do you know why I succeeded? It was because my mind was concentrated on the Goddess. The Goddess is the only one who can '

The boy cut him short with, 'I know it is a different Goddess you worshipped. It is that Goddess Lakshmi. I know all that from mother.'

Margayya felt upset by this taunt. He called his wife and asked, 'Why have you been talking nonsense to this boy? He is saying all sorts of things.'

'What has he been saying?' asked the wife, wiping her wet hands on the end of her sari.

Margayya was at a loss to explain. There was really no basis for his charge. He merely said, 'That boy contradicts me.' He turned furiously on his son and said, 'It is all the same Goddess. There is no difference between Lakshmi and Saraswathi, do you understand?'

The boy was not to be cowed. He simply said, 'They are different, I know.' He said it with an air of finality. Margayya asked, 'How do you know? Who told you?'

'My master.'

'Who? Murti? I will speak to that fool. If he is putting obstinate ideas into your head, he is not fit to be your teacher.' Then he added, 'Tell me as soon as he comes tomorrow or this evening.'

'But you won't be at home when he comes,' said the boy.

'Let him wait for me. Tell him he must see me,' said Margayya.

'All right,' said the boy.

Margayya then ordered him out, with, 'You can go and do your sums now. Don't waste the precious hours of the morning.' Balu ran off with great relief to his study and read a page out of his geography at the top of his voice so that all other sounds in the house were drowned.

He went to school trembling with the joyous anticipation of carrying a piece of unpleasant news to his teacher. The moment he sighted him he cried, 'Sir, sir, my father has asked you to wait for him this evening.'

The teacher's face turned pale. 'Why? Why?' he stammered nervously. There were some boys watching them, and he said, 'Go away, boys, attend to your work, why do you stand and gape,' as sternly as he could. He then took Balu aside and said: 'Tell me boy, why does your father want me to see him?' 'I don't know, sir,' Balu replied, enjoying the occasion completely. 'I don't know, sir.' He shook his head, but his eyes were lively with mischief and suppressed information. The teacher tried to frighten him: 'Should you not ask him why he wants to when somebody says he wants to meet somebody else? Must you be taught all these elementary things?'

'Oh, my father cannot be asked all that. He will be very angry if he is questioned like that. Why should I be beaten by him, sir? Do you want me to be beaten by him, sir?'

The teacher took him privately under the tamarind tree and begged: 'See here, what exactly happened today, won't you tell me, won't you tell your teacher?'

He sounded melodramatic, and Balu started bargaining, 'I couldn't do any sums this morning.' The teacher assured him that he would condone the lapse. And then Balu went on to the next bargaining point by which the teacher himself should do the sums and not bother Balu except to the extent of showing him what marks he had obtained for them. When it was granted, Balu demanded: 'You promised me bharfi; I must have it this afternoon, sir.'

'You will surely get a packet from me this afternoon,' said the teacher affably. After all this, Balu told him the reason why his father wanted to meet him. The teacher cried: 'I say, whatever made you speak thus? Have I ever mentioned to you anything about Lakshmi or anything of the kind?'

'My father asked who told me all that, and so I had to say it was you,' said Balu, with obscure logic.

The teacher waited for Margayya's arrival in the evening after finishing the lessons with Balu. Balu went in to demand his dinner. It was past eight when Margayya came home. As the pitpat of his sandals was heard outside the teacher felt acutely uneasy and stood up. Margayya carefully put away his sandals at the corridor and came in. He saw the teacher and asked, 'What is the matter, teaching so late?' The teacher went forward officiously, rubbed his hands and said, 'Oh, I finished the lessons long ago, and Balu has even gone to sleep. I only waited to see you, sir,' he added.

'Oh, now, impossible,' said Margayya. He proceeded to put away his upper-cloth and take off his shirt. 'I come home after a hard day's work and now you try to catch me for some idiotic school business, I suppose. Do you think I have no other business? Go, go, nothing doing now.'

'All right, sir,' the teacher said turning to go, greatly relieved.

'Is there anything else?' Margayya shouted as the other was going. The teacher thought for a moment and said: 'Nothing special, sir,' in a most humble tone, which satisfied Margayya. His self-importance was properly fed; and so he said, as a sort of favour to the teacher, 'I hope Balu is all right?'

'Oh, yes, sir; he is quite up to the mark although he needs constant watching ...'

'Well, as a teacher that is what you are expected to do, remember. And any time you see him getting out of hand, don't wait for me. Thrash him. Thrash him well.' As a sort of general philosophy, he added, 'No boy who has not been thrashed has come to any good. I am going to be extremely busy hereafter and won't have much time for anything. Don't take your eye off the boy.'

'Yes, sir, I will always do my best; as a teacher my interest is to see him rise in the world as a man of '

Margayya turned and went away to the backyard without waiting for him to finish the sentence. His wife picked up a vessel of water and gave it to him. As he poured it over himself and she could be sure he was feeling cooler, she said, 'Why do you constantly say "Thrash" "Thrash" whenever you speak of the child? It is not good.'

Margayya replied, 'Oh, you believe it! It is just a formality with teachers, that is all. It keeps them in trim. After all, the fellow takes ten rupees a month and he must keep himself alert; but he dare not even touch our little darling. I would strike off that miserable teacher's head.'

It was all very bewildering to his wife. She asked, 'If you don't want him to do it why do you tell him to thrash him?'

'That is the way things have to be done in the world, my dear. If you see a policeman ask him to catch the thief, if you see a monkey ask him to go up a tree, and if you see a teacher ask him to thrash his pupil ... These are the things they do and it pleases them, they are appropriate. If you want to please me tell me to put up the interest, and I at once feel I am being spoken to by a friend and well-wisher!'

There was probably no other person in the whole country who had meditated so much on the question of interest. Margayya's mind was full of it. Night and day he sat and brooded over it. The more he thought of it the more it seemed to him the greatest wonder of creation. It combined in it the mystery of birth and multiplication. Otherwise how could you account for the fact that a hundred rupees in a savings bank became one hundred and twenty in course of time? It was something like the ripening of corn. Every rupee, Margayya felt, contained in it seed of another rupee and that seed in it another seed and so on and on to infinity. It was something like the firmament, endless stars and within each star an endless firmament and within each one further endless ... It bordered on mystic perception. It gave him the feeling of being part of an infinite existence. But Margayya was racked with the feeling that these sublime thoughts were coming to him in a totally wrong setting. He disliked the atmosphere of the Gordon Printery. He detested his office and the furniture. Sitting in a chair, dangling one's legs under a table, seemed an extremely irksome process; it was as if you remained half suspended in mid-air. He liked to keep his knees folded and tucked that alone gave him a feeling of being on solid ground. And then his table and all its equipment seemed to him a most senseless luxury. They were not necessary for the welfare and progress of a business man; they were mere show stuff. And all that calling-bell nonsense. The best way to call was to shout 'Boy,' and keep shouting till the boy's ear-drums split and he came running. All this tinkling calling-bell stuff was a waste of time. You were not a shepherd playing on a flute calling back your flock! Margayya was so much tickled by this comparison that he laughed aloud one day while he sat in his office, and was supposed to be counting the orders for Domestic Harmony. The boy came running in at the sound of this laughter, and Margayya flung the call-bell at him and said: 'Don't let me see this on my table. I don't want all this tomfoolery.' This was the starting-point.

The business always seemed to him an alien one. The only interesting thing about it seemed to be the money that was coming in. 'But money is not everything,' he told himself one day. It was a very strange statement to come from a person like Margayya. But if he had been asked to explain or expand it further he would have said: 'Money is very good no doubt, but the whole thing seems to be in a wrong setting.' Money was not in its right place here, amidst all the roar of printing machinery, ugly streaming proof sheets, and the childish debits and credits that arose from book sales with booksellers and book buyers, who carried on endless correspondence over trivialities about six and a quarter and twelve and a half per cent and a few annas of postage and so forth. It was all very well if you spoke of those percentages with a value of a hundred rupees at least; but here you were dealing with two rupees per copy and involved yourself in all these hair-splitting percentages. It did not seem to Margayya an adult business; there was really no stuff in it; there was not sufficient adventure in it; there was nothing in it. 'Book business is no business at all,' he told his wife one evening when he decided to part company with Lai. 'It is a business fit for youngsters of Balu's age.' The lady had no comment to offer since all business seemed to her equally complex and bewildering. She had to listen with patience as he expanded his theme: 'It is a rusty business, sitting there all the time and looking at those silly figures ... Well, to let you into a secret, there is not much of that either; the figures are falling off; sales are not as good as they used to be.' And then it hurt his dignity to be called the publisher of Domestic Harmony. He would prefer people to forget it if possible. When the profits dwindled he began to view the book in a peculiarly realistic light. 'Awful stuff,' he told his wife. 'Most vulgar and poisonous. It will do a lot of damage to young minds.'

'And also to old minds, I think. How can people write brazenly of all those matters?' she asked.

Margayya said, 'Did you ever notice how I have managed not to bring a single copy into this house? I don't want our Balu even to know that there is such a book.' His wife expressed deep appreciation of this precaution. Margayya felt further impelled to add, 'I don't want people to say that Balu enjoys all the money earned through Domestic Harmony. I would do anything to avoid it.' He felt very heroic when he said that. He seemed to swell with his goodness, nobility and importance, and the clean plans he was able to make for his son.

It was quite a fortnight before he spoke of it to Lai. Lai was thinking that Margayya was attending to his work as usual. Their quarterly statement system worked quite smoothly. There was no chance of any mistake or misunderstanding. Lai himself was a man who believed that in the long run honesty paid in any business. Margayya had complete charge of the sales, and the division of the spoils went on smoothly without a hitch. At tiffin time, Margayya called up his boy and told him: 'Go and ask Lai if he will come here for tiffin today. Tell him that there is something I have brought from home.' Lai came up. Margayya ceremoniously welcomed him and pointed to the chair opposite. 'My wife has sent something special today for my afternoon tiffin, and I thought you might like to taste it.'

'I have to go home for lunch,' said Lai. 'I have told them that I would be there.'

'I will send word to them. Boy!' Margayya cried. He took complete charge of the other. 'Call the master's servant, and send him up to inform the lady at the house that Sab is not coming there for his meal. And then run up and bring ...' He gave an elaborate list of tiffins to be purchased at the canteen next door. 'Ask him to make the best coffee.'

'I don't want coffee, mister. Let it be tea. I have taken coffee only for your sake once or twice. I don't want coffee.'

'All right, make it tea then; and coffee for me. Hurry up! Why are you still standing and blinking? Hurry up, young fellow.' There, consuming their repast, Margayya made his proposal. 'Lai, you have done a lot for me. I want to do a good turn to you.'

At the mention of this Lai sat up interested. 'Good turn,' he thought. That sounded suspicious. No one like Margayya would do a good turn except as a sort of investment. Lai wanted to know what the proposal was going to mean. He knew that it must be something connected with Domestic Harmony, but he felt he should have all his faculties alert. He said very casually, 'Well, mister, we must all be helpful to each other, isn't that so? Otherwise, what is life worth? What is existence worth? If we are always thinking of our profits, we shall not be able to do any good in this world. I am glad you think so much of my little service to you. But pray don't think too much of it. I have done the little I could, although financially it has really meant a loss. If I should put into my books all the time and energy, to say nothing of the materials, that have been put into our job, it would really turn out to be a loss. If I had engaged myself in something else ... But my mind will not run on these lines: I always like to think at the end of the day that I have done something without thought of profit, and only then do I feel able to go to sleep.'

Margayya felt it was time for him to interrupt this peroration. 'The same with me. I like to go a step further. Not only lack of profit: I like to feel that I have done something with a little sacrifice for another person's sake. It is not often one gets a chance to do such a thing, but when one does, one is able to sleep with the utmost peace that night.'

With their mouths stuffed with sweets and other edibles they spoke for about ten minutes more on sacrifices and the good life. When they came to the coffee there was a lull and Margayya said casually, 'Here is the proposal about Domestic Harmony. I don't like you to bear the burden any more since you say that you have had a loss. Why don't you let me take it over completely?'

'Why? How can that be? There is our partnership deed ... My lawyer ...'

'Oh, let your lawyer alone. We don't need lawyers. Why do you bring in a lawyer when we are discussing something as friends? Is this all the regard you have for our friendship? I am very much hurt, Lai. I wish you had not mentioned a lawyer.' He sat looking very sad and broken-hearted at this turn of events.

Lai remained quiet for a few moments. He took a cup of tea and gulped it down. He said: 'Why should you feel so much upset at the thought of lawyers? They are not demons. Somehow I don't like to do anything without telling my lawyer about it.'

'As for me,' said Margayya, 'you need not imagine that I have no use for lawyers. I consult not one but two or three at a time in business matters. I never take a step unless I have had a long and complete consultation with my lawyer ... But now there is nothing to warrant the calling of a lawyer or the police,' he added laughing.

The other could not view the matter with the same ease and still looked very serious.

Margayya said: 'I am not calling you here to give you trouble, Lai. I am only informally trying to talk over a matter with you, that is all, but if you are going to be so suspicious I had better not speak of it. You see, I am not a person who cares much for advantages; what seems to me the most important thing in human life is good relationships among all human beings.'

This maudlin statement had the desired effect and Lai softened a little, and asked, 'What is it that you are trying to say?'

'Merely that you should let me buy up the partnership for Domestic Harmony.'

'It is impossible,' he cried. 'I can prove that I have observed all the clauses faithfully. How can we cancel it, mister? What is it that you are suggesting?'

'It is only a suggestion,' Margayya said. 'Just to save you the bother, that's all; there's nothing more in it, especially since I thought you could employ your time and energies more profitably '

'Impossible!' Lai cried. 'I will not listen to it.'

'Oh,' Margayya said, and remained thoughtful. Then he added, 'Well then, I will make a sporting offer.' He tapped his chest dramatically, 'Just to prove that all is well here I make this sporting offer to you. Take it if you can. You will then know that I am not trying to gain a mean advantage over you.'

'What are you saying, mister?'

'It is this ... I will speak if you promise you will not call your lawyer or the police after me!'

'Oh, you are a very sensitive man,' Lai said. 'I meant no offence.'

'You might not, but it is very depressing ... You are a business man and I am a business man. Let us talk like two business men. Either we agree or we don't agree ... Either give the Domestic Harmony solely '

'Impossible,' cried Lai once again. 'There is our partnership deed.'

'What is the deed worth? Tear it up, I say, and take over the book yourself. I do not want any interest in it. I am prepared to give it to you this very moment, although in a couple of months the marriage season will be on and the demand for the book will go up. I am prepared to surrender it. Are you prepared to accept it?'

'No,' said Lai promptly. 'I do not like to take advantage of anyone's generosity.'

It needed, however, two more days of such talk, rambling, challenging, and bordering on the philosophical, before they could evolve an equitable give-and-take scheme; a scheme which each secretly thought gave him a seventy-five per cent advantage. By it Margayya abandoned for ever his interest in Domestic Harmony for a lump sum payment, and he tore up his document dramatically and put it into the wastepaper basket under Lai's table, at which Lai seemed to be much moved. He extended his hand and said: 'Among business men once a friend always a friend. Our friendship must always grow. If you have any printing of forms or anything remember us; we are always at your service. This is your press.'

He saw Margayya off at the door and Margayya walked down the Market Road with a satisfactory cheque in his pocket.

PART THREE.

Margayya went straight to the Town Bank. He refused to transact his business at the counter; he had to do it sitting in a chair in the Manager's room. But he found someone talking to the Manager and he had to wait outside for a moment. It was a crowded hour. Margayya never liked to do his transactions through the counter window. He despised the clerks. It was a sign of prestige for a business man to get things done in a bank without standing at the little window. That was for the little fellows who had no current account but only a savings bank book. He had the greatest contempt for savings bank operations: putting in money as if into a child's money box and withdrawing no more than fifty rupees a week or some miserable amount, not through cheques but by writing on those pitiful withdrawal forms ... Having a current account seemed to him a stamp of superiority, and a man who had two accounts, account number one and account number two, was a person of eminence. He saw waiting at the counters petty merchants, office messengers, and a couple of students of the Albert College attempting to cash cheques from their parents.

Hearing their inquiries, Margayya felt: 'Why do their parents send these boys cheques which they won't know how to cash?' He thought: 'What do these people know of cheques? What do they know of money? They are ignorant folk who do not know the worth of money, and think that it is just something to pass into a shop. Fools!' He pitied them. He felt that he must do something to enlighten their minds. He would not be a banker to them, but a helper, a sort of money doctor who would help people to use their money properly with the respect due to it. He would educate society anew in all these matters. He hoped he would be able to draw away all these people into his own establishment when the time came. The reason why people came here was that they were attracted by the burnished counters, the heavy ledgers, the clerks sitting on high stools and so on, and, of course, the calling bells and pin-cushions. Once again show, mere show. Showiness was becoming the real curse of all business these days, he thought. It was not necessary to have anything more than a box for carrying on any business soundly; not necessary to have too many persons or tables or leather-bound ledgers; all that was required was just one head and a small notebook in which to note down figures if they became too complicated, and above all a scheme. He knew that he had a scheme somewhere at the back of his mind, a scheme which would place him among the elect in society, which would make people flock to him and look to him for guidance, advice and management. He could not yet say what the scheme would be, but he sensed its presence, being a financial mystic. Whatever it was, it was going to revolutionize his life and the life of his fellow men. He felt he ought to wait on that inspiration with reverence and watchfulness.

A peon came up to say, 'The Manager is free.'

'All right, I'll be coming,' said Margayya. He liked to give an impression that he was in no hurry to run into the Manager's room at his call. He looked through some papers in his pocket, folded and put them back, and sauntered into the Manager's room.