The Inspector had credited Margayya with greater self-possession. A crowd gathered at the door; the cinemagoers viewed this as a free show. The Inspector lost his temper at the sight of the crowd, and going up to the door, shouted: 'Get out of this place.' He stood at the doorway, and Balu felt that his retreat was cut off. He surrendered without a word.

The officer saw them off at the Egmore platform. Margayya gripped his arm and once again there were tears of gratitude in his eyes. He said: 'You have been like a God to me. Tell me, if there is any way in which I can repay you, write to me. You know my address.'

'Oh, yes. This is the first time I got at someone who was not a dacoit or a knave. I am glad to have done a good turn,' said the Inspector. He told Balu: 'Be a good son. Don't be a bother to your parents again. I have told the railway police to keep an eye on you.' It was this part that Balu did not like, and later commented after the Inspector went away.

'What can the railway police do? I'm not a thief. If I want to give them the slip there are a dozen ways.'

The Inspector had got them comfortable seats in an end compartment which was not too crowded. All night Margayya plied his son with questions and tried to know what he had been doing with himself ever since his disappearance after the results, but the boy sullenly declared: 'I won't speak of anything. Why couldn't you leave me alone? I was quite happy there.'

'But ... but ... have you no affection, don't you want to see your mother, your ?'

'I don't want to see anybody.'

'But my dear boy, do you know what it will mean to them to see you back in the flesh? Your mother broke down completely '

'Why couldn't you have given me up for dead? I was quite happy seeing pictures every day. I want to be in Madras. I like the place,' he said, already feeling dull at the prospect of living in Malgudi. 'What are you going to do with me? Make me read for exams I suppose?' he asked next.

'You need not go near books: you can do just as you please,' said Margayya indulgently. He was filled with love for his son. He felt an indescribable pity as he saw the dirty, greasy dress and the famished appearance the boy had acquired. He became absolutely blind to all the dozen persons packed into the compartment. He hugged his shoulders and whispered: 'You eat, rest, and grow fat that is all you are expected to do, and take as much money as you like.'

The boy seemed to accept this advice with a hundred per cent literalness. As one supposed to be returned from the grave, he was treated with extraordinary consideration. His mother, he found, seemed to have become an entirely new person. She looked more youthful. A new flush appeared on her sallow cheeks. Her eyes had become very bright and sparkling. She became loquacious and puckish in her comments. She took the trouble to comb her hair with care and stuck jasmine strings in it. She seemed to feel that she was born anew into the world. She spoke light-heartedly and with a trembling joy in her voice. This was a revelation to Balu. He had never thought they attached so much importance to his person. He enjoyed it very much. His mother plied him with delicacies all the time. He had only to take a deep breath and look for his mother, and she at once asked: 'What do you want, my boy?' Balu found that he had returned to a new home. Everything now was different. His father left him alone according to his promise. It was a very agreeable situation for all concerned except Margayya's brother and family.

The moment Balu was brought back home, their position as the helpers of the family disappeared. It was a relationship essentially thriving on a crisis. The moment that the crisis was over, the two families fell apart; and they were once again reduced to the position of speculating from the other side of the wall what might be happening next door. Margayya's wife ceased to bother about them: Balu never knew that there had been a momentary friendliness during his absence. On the day he arrived with his father, when he stepped in and saw his uncle and the family in their central hall, he was speechless.

His uncle demanded: 'What have you been doing with yourself? What is all this ?'

And his aunt and the children of the next house surrounded him and gaped at him. He felt abashed. He simply moved into the little room at the side and shut the door on the entire gathering. That was the signal; when he reopened the door, the house was cleared and the front door bolted. Margayya briefly announced to him: 'They have all gone.'

'Where?' Balu asked with interest.

'To their own house,' Margayya said, and added: 'What is their business here, anyway?'

His wife chimed in: 'They probably wanted an excuse to plant themselves in here again!'

Margayya did not like to contradict her or say anything so utterly ungracious himself, although the moment he had secured his son, his first thought was to tell his brother's family, as diplomatically as his nature would permit, that they might go back to their house and resume their avocations! This he said very gently when the occasion came. As Balu shut himself into the small room, his brother wanted anxiously to know what had happened.

He said: 'Did I not tell you to go to Madras, and then it would turn out to be good for you?'

Here is this fellow, Margayya reflected, rubbing in his own wisdom and judgement as usual. He hated in his brother the 'Didn't I say so?' tone that he constantly adopted. It seemed to him a very irritating and petty habit of mind, and so he retorted sharply: 'That's all right, nobody doubts your wisdom.'

His brother ignored this sting and asked: 'Well, where did you find him? What was he doing? Who wrote that card?'

Margayya lowered his voice and said in a whisper: 'I will tell you all that later, when the boy is out of hearing. Now I had better attend to his wants.' He moved towards the street door.

His brother took the hint: he cast a glance at his wife, who got up, herded the children together and started out, telling Margayya's wife: 'I have so much to do at home I think ... Anyway, let us thank God for this recovery,' and marched out. The moment the door shut on them, Margayya's brother's wife ground her teeth and said: 'Even if this house is on fire, let us not go near them again.' It was a sentiment which was not approved by the last but one toddling beside her: 'Why not, mother? It's so nice being in that house!'

'Now what has happened for you to make all this fuss?' her husband asked. There were tears in her eyes when she went up the steps of her own house. She said: 'I only want you to have self-respect, that's all. After all that we have done for them these three days, baking and cooking for them night and day five seers of rice gone for those ingrates '

'After all, she was the only person in their house. You have included the feeding of your own children,' her husband said; which enraged her so much that she stabbed his cheeks with her fingers screaming: 'Go and lick their feet for love of that wonderful brother of yours, you will do anything for him I am sure.'

PART FOUR.

Balu devoted himself to the art of cultivating leisure. He was never in any undue hurry to get out of bed. At about nine o'clock, his father came to his bedside and gently reminded him: 'Had you not better get up before the coffee gets too stale?' Balu drank his morning coffee, demanded some tiffin, dressed himself, and left the house. He returned home at about one o'clock and sat down to his lunch. His mother waited for him interminably. He came home any time after one. Sometimes he came home very late. Even then he found his mother waiting.

'What are you waiting for, mother?' he asked. She never answered the question but went on to serve him his dinner. After dinner, he went up to the shop opposite, bought betel leaves and areca-nut, chewed them with great satisfaction, and sat down on a dealwood box placed in front of the shop, watching the goings-on of the street for a while and smoking a cigarette, after making sure his mother was not watching. If he saw any elder of the house or of the next house coming out, he turned the cigarette into the hollow of his palm and gulped down the smoke. After this luxury, he suddenly got up, crossed the street, and went back to his house. He spread a towel on the granite floor, in the passage from the street, and, cooled by the afternoon breeze blowing in through the street door, was overcome with drowsiness and was soon asleep. He was left undisturbed. He woke from sleep only at five in the evening, and immediately demanded something to eat and drink, washed himself and combed his crop and went out. He returned home only after ten, when the whole town had gone to sleep. By this time, his father had already come home and was fretting, bothering his wife to tell him where Balu had gone. He had got into the habit of feeling panicky if Balu absented himself too long from home. But the moment the door opened and Balu came in, he became absolutely docile and agreeable.

He said: 'Oh, Balu has come!' with tremendous enthusiasm, and as he went in to change, asked with the utmost delicacy: 'Where have you been?' avoiding to the best of his ability any suggestion of intimidation or effrontery.

The boy just said: 'I've been here and there what should I be doing at home?'

Six months of this life and the boy became unrecognizable: there were fat pads under his eyes; his chin was doubling, and his eyes seemed to shrink down to half their original size. Margayya wondered what to do with him. 'Must do something so that he is able to grow up like other normal boys of his age otherwise he will rust.' He thought that the best solution would be to marry him. He sent out his emissaries, and very soon the results became evident. From far and wide horoscopes came in, and letters asking for his son's in return. Margayya carefully scrutinized the status of those who clamoured for his alliance. It was like the State Ministry scrutinizing the wedding proposals of a satellite Prince. The chief assistant in this business was his accountant Sastri. He had acquired a new status now as a matchmaker. As he sat in his corner copying in his ledger, Margayya said from his seat: 'Sastri, do you know anyone with a daughter?'

'Yes, sir,' Sastri said, pleased to have an opportunity to look up from his ledger. 'Yes, sir, quite a lot of inquiries have been coming my way, sir, for Balu '

'Then why didn't you mention the matter to me?'

'You may be sure, sir, that when the right party comes they will be brought to you. Till then it does not seem to be very necessary to trouble you, sir.'

'Quite right,' said Margayya, pleased with his accountant and feeling his own eminence unquestioned and clearly placed. 'You are right, Sastri I'm very keen that if there is to be an alliance it must be with a family who have a sense of '

'I know, sir, they must at least be your equal in status, sir.'

'Status! Status!' Margayya laughed pleasantly. 'I don't believe in it, Sastri ... it's not right to talk of status and such things in these days. You know I'm a man who has had to work hard to make money and keep it. But I never for a moment feel that I am superior to anyone on earth. I feel that even the smallest child in the road is my equal in status.'

'Very few there are, sir,' said the other, 'who are so wealthy and are so free from vanity or showiness. I have known people with only a tenth of what you possess, sir, but the way they '

'How do you know it is only a tenth of what I have?' Margayya asked, his suspicions slightly roused: for he let the other keep only one set of accounts: the other set which gave a fuller picture of his financial position was always in his possession. Had this fellow been peeping into his private registers? The man gave a reassuring reply: 'Any child in the town can say who it is if he is asked to name the richest man.' It was very flattering and true, but Margayya hoped that the income-tax people would not take the same view. Further development of this conversation was cut off because three clients from a far-off village came in asking: 'Is this Margayya's?' At once Margayya and his assistant fell silent and became absorbed in their work. When anybody entered with that question on his lips, it meant that he was a new client, he had been sent in by one of Margayya's agents, and he would want ready cash before departing for the evening.

Margayya said: 'Come in, come in, friends. May I ask who has sent you along?' They had come with the right recommendation. The three villagers came in timidly, tucking in their upper-cloth. Margayya became very officious and showed them their seats on the mat: it was as if he had reserved for them special seats on fresh carpets and divans. He then said: 'Will you have soda or coffee? Or would you care to chew betel leaves?' He turned to Sastri and said: 'Send the boy down to fetch something for them: they have come a long distance. You came by bus?'

'Yes, paying a fare of twelve annas; and we want to catch the evening bus, if possible.'

They went by the evening bus, but leaving their mortgage deed behind, and carrying in their pouches three hundred rupees, the first instalment of interest on what was already held at the source. The first instalment was the real wealth whose possibilities of multiplication seemed to stretch to infinity. This was like the germinating point of a seed capable of producing hundreds of such germinating points. Lend this margin again to the next man, as a petty loan, withholding a further first instalment; and take that again and lend it with a further instalment held up and so on ... it was like the reflections in two opposite mirrors. You could really not see the end of it it was a part of the mystic feeling that money engendered in Margayya, its concrete form lay about him in his iron safe in the shape of bonds, and gold bars, and currency notes, and distant arable lands, of which he had become the owner because the original loans could not be repaid, and also in the shape of houses and blocks of various sizes and shapes, which his way of buying interest had secured for him in the course of his business through the machinery of 'distraint'. Many were those that had become crazed and unhappy when the courts made their orders, but Margayya never bothered about them, never saw them again. 'It's all in the business,' he said. 'It's up to them to pay the dues and take back their houses. They forget that they asked for my help.' People borrowed from him only under stress and when they could get no accommodation elsewhere. Margayya was the one man who easily lent. He made the least fuss about the formalities, but he charged interest in so many subtle ways and compounded it so deftly that the moment a man signed his bonds, he was more or less finished. He could never hope to regain his possessions especially if he allowed a year or two to elapse.

There were debt relief laws and such things. But Margayya nullified their provisions because the men for whom the laws were made were enthusiastic collaborators in his scheme, and everything he did looked correct on paper. He acquired a lot of assets. But he lost no time in selling them and realizing their cash again, and stored it in an iron safe at home. 'What am I to do with property?' he said. 'I want only money, not brick and lime or mud,' he reflected when he reconverted his attached property into cash. The only property he often dreamt of was the one at the foot of the Mempi Hills, but somehow it was constantly slipping away: that fellow, Kanda, came again and again, but always managed to retain his ownership of his lands.

Sastri turned up with quite a score of offers for Margayya's son. Margayya felt greatly flattered and puffed up with conceit. This was evidence that he had attained social importance. He had never thought that anyone of consequence would care to ally with his family. There was a family secret about his caste which stirred uneasily at the back of his mind. Though he and the rest were supposed to be of good caste now, if matters were pried into deeply enough they would find that his father's grandfather and his brothers maintained themselves as corpse-bearers. They were four brothers. The moment anyone died in the village, they came down and took charge of the business from that moment up to dissolving the ashes in the tank next day. They were known as 'corpse brothers'. It took two or three generations for the family to mitigate this reputation; and thereafter, they were known as agriculturists, owning and cultivating small parcels of land. No one bothered about their origin, afterwards, except a grand-aunt who let off steam when she was roused by declaring: 'It's written on their faces where can it go, even if you allow a hundred years to elapse.'

It was Margayya's constant fear that when the time came to marry his son, people might say: 'Oh, they are after all corpse-bearers, didn't you know?' But fortunately this fear was unfounded. At any rate, his financial reputation overshadowed anything else. Horoscopes and petitions poured in by every post. It produced a sense of well-being in Margayya, and a quiet feeling of greatness.

Sastri had done his part of the work efficiently. He had set aside all ledger work for the moment, and had written out scores of letters to men known to him within a radius of about two hundred miles. He was a compendium of likely parties with daughters to marry. He went out and saw in person quite a good many locally, as an ambassador. In all his correspondence and talk he described Margayya as the 'Lord of Uncounted Lakhs' or as one who was 'the richest in India'; and he spoke of Balu as inheritor of all this wealth and an apprentice in his father's own business and a young man whose education was deliberately suspended because his father, having his own idea of education, was more keen on training the young fellow in business than letting him acquire useless degrees. Margayya scrutinized quite a file of applications and horoscopes. He rejected most of the proposals. They were from quite unworthy aspirants. Margayya felt, 'Why should these people waste my time and their own? Are they blind? I have a certain position in life to keep up and I naturally want only alliances which can come up to that expectation.'

Finally he picked up the horoscope of a girl who seemed to him desirable from every point of view. Her name was Brinda. She was seventeen years old. Her father in his first letter described her as being 'extremely fair'. He was a man who owned a tea-estate in Mempi Hills. At once it biased Margayya's mind in his favour. It was not a very large estate but yielded an income often thousand rupees a year. Margayya sent Sastri out to fetch an astrologer. There was one practising in the lane behind the Market Road. A man presently entered with beads at his throat and sacred ash on his forehead, wrapped in a red silk toga and dressed every inch for his part. There were a few of Margayya's clients waiting for him, and he had to dispose of them before he could attend to the astrologer. He seated the astrologer and made him wait for a few moments. The astrologer fretted at having to wait. He sat shifting uneasily in his seat, cleared his throat, and coughed once or twice in order to attract attention. Margayya looked up and understood. He interrupted himself in his work to tell the astrologer: 'Hey, Pandit, can't you remain at peace with yourself for a moment?' The astrologer was taken aback, but curbed his restlessness. Margayya disposed of his clients, looked up and said: 'Come nearer, Pandit.' The astrologer edged his way nearer.

By his manner and words, Margayya had now completely cowed the man. It seemed necessary as a first step to dictate to the planets what they should do. Margayya had made up his mind that he was going to take no nonsense from the planets, and that he was going to tell them how to dispose their position in order to meet his requirement: his requirement was the daughter of a man who owned tea-estates in Mempi Hills, and he was consulting the astrologer purely as a formality. These were not days when he had to wait anxiously on a verdict of the stars: he could afford to ask for his own set of conditions and get them. He no longer believed that man was a victim of circumstances or fate but that man was a creature who could make his own present and future, provided he worked hard and remained watchful. 'The gold bars in the safe at home and the cash bundles and the bank passbook are not sent down from heaven they are a result of my own application. I need not have stayed at my desk for ten hours at a stretch and talked myself hoarse to all those clients of mine and taken all that risk on half-secured loans! ... I could just have sat back and lost myself in contemplation '

His mind sometimes pursued such a line of thought. But he at once realized that it was not always quite safe to think so and added the rider: 'Of course Goddess Lakshmi or another will have to be propitiated from time to time. But we must also work and be able to keep correct accounts and pay for what we demand.' This was no doubt a somewhat confusing and mixed-up philosophy of life, but that was how it was and its immediate manifestation was to say to the astrologer, as he pushed before him his son's horoscope and the tea-estate daughter's, 'Pandit, see if you can match these horoscopes.'

The Pandit put on his glasses and tilted the horoscopes towards the light at the door and studied them in silence.

Margayya watched his face and said: 'What is your fee for your services?'

'Let my fee alone,' the other said. 'Let me do my work properly first.'

Margayya said: 'Well, probably I shall be able to add a couple of rupees to your usual charges ... and if the alliance concludes successfully, well, of course, a lace dhoti and all honours for the Pandit '

'Give me a pencil and paper,' the other said briefly.

The astrologer filled the sheet of paper with numbers and their derivatives, and worked up and down the page and on the back of it. He asked for another sheet of paper and worked up further figures. Margayya watched him anxiously. He said softly: 'I want this alliance to go through. I shall appreciate it very much if you will work towards that objective. I can show my appreciation concretely if '

The astrologer shook his head and muttered: 'Impossible you will have to find '

'I don't want you to talk unnecessarily,' Margayya said.

'The seventh and ninth houses in your son's horoscope are ... are not quite sound. The girl's marriage possibilities are the purest. The two horoscopes cannot match they are like soap and oil.'

'I have no faith in horoscopes personally '

'Then you need not have gone to the extent of looking at these,' the astrologer said.

Margayya felt angry. He asked finally: 'Is there nothing that you can do?'

'Absolutely nothing. What can I do? Am I Brahma?'

Margayya could not trust himself to speak further. He called across the room: 'Sastri '

'Yes, sir.'

'Give this Pandit a rupee and see him off 'Yes, sir,' Sastri proceeded to open a money bag.

The Pandit said: 'A rupee! Am I a street-astrologer! My fee is usually '

'I am not interested. My fee for such service as you do is just one rupee maximum. You will not get even that if you misbehave,' said Margayya, and he shot out his hand and snatched back the horoscopes and the sheet of calculations. He looked for a moment at it to see if he could read anything. It was a maze of obscure calculations and figures. He thought of tearing it up, but remembering that he had paid for it, folded it neatly and put it into his personal desk. The astrologer got up loftily and walked towards the accountant, received his rupee with an air of resignation, and strode out without relaxing his looks.

Dr Pal helped Margayya to find a different astrologer who rearranged the stars of Balu to suit the circumstances. Margayya did not meet the astrologer in person. Dr Pal took upon himself the task. He made several journeys between the astrologer and Margayya carrying the envelope containing the horoscopes, and finally came back one day with the astrologer's written report on a saffron-tipped paper; the report said that the two horoscopes perfectly matched, with reasons adduced. Considering the mightiness of the task the fee of seventy-five rupees which Dr Pal said the astrologer charged was purely nominal.

Events then moved briskly. Dr Pal's services became indispensable and constant. He saw Margayya through the preliminary negotiations, the wedding celebrations, and the culmination in a newspaper photo with Balu wearing tie and collar, his handsome bride at his side.

It was the third year of the war, and Margayya decided that the time was now ripe for starting a new line. He walked into Dr Pal's Tourist Home and asked: 'Doctor, how are you faring?'

'Not badly,' said the Doctor.

Margayya observed the dust-laden table, the penholder which had not been moved, and the unwritten sheets of paper before him unmistakable signs of dull business. Margayya settled in the chair and began: 'Doctor, I think you ought to make more money.'

'Why?'

'Just for your own good. I will show you a way, if you like.'

'I'm quite contented with what I have.'

'You are not, sir,' said Margayya. 'You forget I'm also in the same building as you are. Don't tell me that there are many fellows coming into your office to seek your assistance in tourism or whatever it may be '

Dr Pal became submissive: 'I have tried one thing after another in life. You know I am a qualified sociologist one of the handful in this country '

'Let us not talk of all that,' said Margayya, not liking the idea of going back to the Domestic Harmony days. It was something which had gone clean out of his mind, except one copy of the book which he retained as a memento of his earlier days and which he kept locked up in his iron safe at home for fear that Balu might get at it. Fortunately, he felt, his daughter-in-law's father did not seem to have heard anything about his association with it. Otherwise he might never have gone through with the alliance it was as risky as the ancestry of his corpse-bearing grandfathers. And so now he cut short Dr Pal's reference to sociology and psychology as if it were dangerous talk, and said: 'I want to do you a good turn.'

'Why?' asked the Doctor.

'Because 'began Margayya, and was about to say, 'you did me a good turn once by forcing on me your manuscript,' but checked these words, and said, 'Don't ask why. Because I have known you for a long while, and have seen you also and I sincerely wish that you could make a little money and live comfortably '

'Tourism,' said Dr Pal, 'is a very honourable and paying proposition in the West, but here nobody cares. There is not a single person anywhere here, who knows the history and archaeology of the country round about. Do you know that there are half a dozen different jungle-tribes to be found on the top of the Mempi Hills? All of them live, breed and die in the jungles but there are so many differences between them. No inter-marriage? My tourism does not confine itself to telling people, "There is the river," "There is the valley," "Here is big game" and pointing to a few ruined temples that's not my idea of tourism; it's something different, something that's as good as education.'

'But it hasn't been a paying line,' said Margayya, growing impatient with his lecture. 'For the moment, if you want a good income, listen to me. If I throw out a word about it, I am sure there will be dozens ready to take it up, but I want to give you the first chance because 'He once again narrowly avoided reference to Domestic Harmony, and said: 'Because, because, I've been seeing you for quite a long while, and I would like to see you prosper.'

There was another reason why Margayya wanted to help, which was also not mentioned. He found Dr Pal hanging too much about his son's establishment at Lawley Road. Margayya gave one of the houses he had acquired to his son for setting up a family independently, although Margayya's wife did not much like the idea of living separated from him. But Margayya told her: 'Think for a moment, my dear girl, Brinda comes from an up-to-date family, and already shows her superior training. Is she very comfortable in this house?'

His wife thought it over and agreed: 'I don't think so. Balu has been saying that the new room you have put up on the terrace is not good enough. In her father's house she has four rooms, all her own.' She added: 'The girl hardly comes out of her room all day. I have to call her a dozen times before she will come downstairs for her meal. I hardly see anything of Balu either. He doesn't speak much. I'm probably not good enough for a modern girl like her.'

'Tut! Tut!' Margayya said to her. 'Don't get into the habits of a mother-in-law. I like the girl very much myself if those two are happy, I think it's best they are left alone to manage their affairs in their own fashion. I have recently acquired a house in Lawley Extension. I think it best that they move off there.'

'So far!' exclaimed the mother horrified.

'It's not so far as you imagine ... just half an hour by a jutka.' He studied her face for a while and added: 'Don't make a fuss. The boy is eighteen years old and he ought to look after himself. The girl will manage the household for him.'

To Margayya's wife it seemed an unthinkable proposition. 'They hardly know how to boil water or even to light an oven.'

'They will learn everything,' Margayya said. 'And they can engage a cook if they want.' He was adamant: 'Sooner or later the boy will himself open the subject and ask for this and that. If he does that it will annoy me very much, and I will resist. I'd rather do things before he speaks it'll look better. I will give him a house and a settlement. I want to see if that will make him think of doing something with his time.'

His wife did not like the note of irony in his voice and protested: 'You have already forgotten what happened. I dread to think you have already started again thinking you ought to improve him!'

Margayya's wife nearly broke down on the day Balu bundled up his clothes into a neat leather suit-case presented to him by his father-in-law, put them into a taxi and drove away with his young wife. Margayya's wife had spent a good part of an entire week in running up and down between Vinayak Mudali Street and Lawley Extension, arranging the bungalow at Lawley Extension for its new occupants. The girl prostrated at her mother-in-law's feet before taking leave of her.

Balu, a taciturn man, just said: 'I'm going,' got into the car, and sat down leaving space for his wife. Margayya's brother's family had crowded on the parapet of the next house. Margayya himself was away, for it had been a busy day for him at his office.

The house for Margayya's wife seemed to have become dull and lonely without her son. It reminded her of the days when he had gone away without telling anybody, but Margayya noticed no difference because his mind was busy formulating a new plan which was going to rocket him to undreamt-of heights of financial success ...

Margayya observed that after Balu settled in his new house, Dr Pal became a constant visitor there. Whenever he went there, at the end of a day's work, he saw Dr Pal settled comfortably in the hall sofa. He played cards with Balu and his wife. He also suspected that Dr Pal constantly took cash from his son. Margayya did not like a man who could write Domestic Harmony to associate with young, impressionable minds; he would probably recite passages from it, talk over further projects with his son, and he couldn't say what Balu might or might not do under those circumstances. At any rate, it seemed imperative to wean his son away from Dr Pal and it seemed best to do it by employing Dr Pal's hours usefully and so making it unnecessary for him to go to the youngster, at least for money.

Now Margayya told Dr Pal: 'You can make a thousand rupees a month easily if you will associate with me. After you have made some money it'll be much more feasible to try your tourism to your heart's content. Are you willing to try and do something?'

'Yes, definitely,' said Dr Pal. At which Margayya began a lecture on money conditions. The war had created a flood of inflated currency. All sorts of people were making money in all sorts of ways some of it unaccounted or unaccountable.