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Updated: May 9, 2025
When people learnt that a new Shylock was at their service, they flocked to him in times of stress. His usual rate of interest being only 5 per cent, per mensem, he cut into the business of other moneylenders, and in four or five years had no serious competitor within a radius of four miles from Kadampur itself.
Shám Babu was strictly honest, and besides, the opportunities within the reach of clerks employed by a private firm are not worth mentioning. After settling down at Kadampur he cudgelled his brains for some means of increasing his slender resources. Friends advised him to try farming, or start a business in lending grain to cultivators. Neither trade was to his liking.
Hiramani soon found Kadampur too hot to hold her and took her departure for ever, to every one's intense relief. A Tame Rabbit. When a penniless Hindu marries into a wealthy family he is sorely tempted to live with, and upon, his father-in-law. But the ease thus secured is unattended by dignity.
He had just eleven rupees and two pice left, which he calculated would last him, with strict economy, for another fortnight. When they were spent, he would have to return crestfallen to Kadampur. But could he face the neighbours' sneers, the servants' contumely worse than all, his wife's bitter tongue? No, that was not to be thought of.
There is some truth in the notion that fortune's gifts seldom come singly. Kumodini Babu's success in a business venture was immediately followed by one in his domestic affairs. It fell out in this wise. Shám Babu's daughter, Shaibalini, was still unmarried, though nearly thirteen and beautiful enough to be the pride of Kadampur.
On this particular occasion talk ran on Kadampur requirements, and somebody opined that another tank for bathing and drinking purposes ought to be excavated at once; he did not say by whom. "True," observed Sham Babu, "but a market is still more necessary. We have to trudge four miles for our vegetables and fish, which are obtainable in a more or less stale condition only twice a week.
The whole of Kadampur and Simulgachi are clamouring for your blood, and Allah has appointed me to be the minister of his vengeance. Time was when I had to cringe to you, just as you are doing to me, but never did I receive mercy from you. Now the tables are turned. I might kill you, and who would dare to inform the police folk?" You deserve all this and more but we will be merciful.
Once master of the situation he drew in his horns, lending money only to people who could give ample security in land, government papers, or jewellery. He was heard to boast that every family in or near Kadampur, except the Basus, were on his books. The duties of his new office were entirely to Santi Priya's liking, and he performed them to Chandra Babu's unqualified approval.
After a vain attempt to make two ends meet in expensive Calcutta, he had settled down at the outskirts of Kadampur, which has a railway station within half an hour's run of the Metropolis. Shám Babu's position and character were generally respected by neighbours, who flocked to his house for Calcutta gossip.
This much was known that he had come to Kadampur fifteen years before my tale opens with a brass drinking-pot and blanket, and obtained a humbly-paid office as a clerk under a local Zemindar. In this capacity he made such good use of the means it offered of extorting money that he was able to set up as a moneylender at Simulgachi, close to Kadampur.
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