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My cold weather crops are looking well; and " "No, that won't do at all. If you do not pay up in a week, I will certainly have recourse to the civil court." "Do so by all means if your sense of religion permits," rejoined Rámdá, leaving the parlour in smothered wrath. When the week of grace had expired, Nagendra Babu filed a suit in the local Múnsiffs Court against his defaulter.
He called the prosecutor into an inner room. What passed between them there was never known; but presently the Sub-Inspector returned to the office and ordered the prisoner to be at once released. Rámdá was truly grateful to Harish Pál for having so cleverly saved him from ruin, and the whole story soon became common property.
"Now, Sub-Inspector Babu," said Harish, "you must see that Nagendra Babu is subject to strange hallucinations since he has taken to drink. He fancies that he is the god of wealth personified, and that everything belongs to him. I am quite certain that Rámdá has been falsely charged with stealing a brass vessel which is his own property." The Sub-Inspector evidently thought so too.
She knew nothing of any such arrangement and assured Rámdá that, if the property was lost, her income would fall to little more than Rs. 100, meaning starvation for herself and little ones. Her trusty counsellor told her not to lose heart, for she might rely on his help. In due course the suit against Rámdá came on for hearing before the Munsiff.
The widow declined to seek Nagendra Babu's help, even if she were reduced to beg in the streets. After mature reflection she sent for Rámdá, who had known her from infancy. He obeyed the summons with alacrity and gave the poor woman sound advice regarding the direction of the Zemindary. By acting on it she was able to increase her income and live in tolerable comfort.
After brooding long over his supposed grievances Nagendra matured a scheme of revenge. He intercepted Rámdá, one afternoon, on his way to visit Samarendra's widow, and, affecting sincere penitence for the injury he had endeavoured to work, he invited the unsuspecting Brahman into his sitting-room.
Rámdá was the consistent enemy of hypocrisy and oppression qualities which became conspicuous in Nagendra Babu's nature under the deteriorating influence of wealth. He met the great man's studied insolence with a volley of chaff, which is particularly galling to vain people because they are incapable of understanding it.
The sale was declared null and void, and Nagendra regained his own to the intense disgust of the rascally Priya. Rámdá. Nagendra Babu was now the wealthiest man in Ratnapur. Puffed up by worldly success, he began to treat his neighbours arrogantly and, with one exception, they did not dare to pay him back in his own coin. Rámdás Ghosal, known far and wide as Rámdá, flattered or feared no one.
Next day, indeed, Rámdá received a notice from Nagendra Babu, calling on him to show cause against the cancellation of his lease on the ground that, by mismanaging the land, he had rendered it unfit for cultivation. Rámdá called some of his neighbours together, to whom he exhibited the document.
So waiting till the little crowd was out of sight, he ran back to Nagendra's house and whispered to him that the bailiff had sent for more property, in order that the case against Rámdá might look blacker. Nagendra handed him a fine muslin shawl and loin-cloth, and a set of gold buttons, adding that he would follow in half an hour in order to depose against the thief.
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