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Updated: May 8, 2025
Nabendu blurted out: "Do you suppose I pass sleepless nights through fear of that?" "We won't publish your name in the papers," said Nilratan reassuringly. Labanya, looking grave and anxious, said: "Still, it wouldn't be safe. Things spread so, from mouth to mouth " Nabendu replied with vehemence: "My name wouldn't suffer by appearing in the newspapers."
Nabendu, free from anxiety, was merrily engaged in a game of cards with his sister-in-law, when Nilratan Babu came upon him with a subscription-book in his hand, and said: "Your signature, please." From old habit Nabendu looked horrified. Labanya, assuming an air of great concern and anxiety, said: "Never do that. It would ruin your racecourse beyond repair."
Had he not at great expense laid out a splendid race-course in a town, which was a fashionable resort of Europeans? When the time of Congress drew near, Nilratan received a request from head-quarters to collect subscriptions.
The six peons displayed a dozen rows of teeth and said: "Bakshish Babu-Sahib." From a side room Nilratan came out, and said in an irritated manner: "Bakshish? What for?" The peons, grinning as before, answered: "The Babu-Sahib went to see the Magistrate so we have come for bakshish." "I didn't know," laughed out Labanya, "that the Magistrate was selling rose-water nowadays.
This letter also was paraded before his sister-in-law, for did it not assert that he was no mean, contemptible scallywag, but a man of real worth? Labanya exclaimed again in feigned surprise: "Which of your friends wrote it now? Oh, come is it the Ticket Collector, or the hide merchant, or is it the drum-major of the Fort?" "You ought to send in a contradiction, I think," said Nilratan.
Very well, you shall see," said Nabendu desperately, and forthwith sat down to write his contradiction. When he had finished, Labanya and Nilratan read it through, and said: "It isn't strong enough. We must give it them pretty hot, mustn't we?" And they kindly undertook to revise the composition.
Coolness wasn't the special feature of his trade before." Nabendu in trying to reconcile the story of his purchase with his visit to the Magistrate, uttered some incoherent words, which nobody could make sense of. Nilratan spoke to the peons: "There has been no occasion for bakshish; you shan't have it."
Besides, Nabendu was now moving in a new atmosphere. Labanya's husband, Babu Nilratan, a leader of the bar, was reproached by many because he refused to pay his respects to European officials. To all such reproaches Nilratan would reply: "No, thank you, if they are not polite enough to return my call, then the politeness I offer them is a loss that can never be made up for.
When the peons were leaving, with thunder in their eyes, he looked at them languishingly, as much as to say: "You know everything, gentlemen, it is not my fault." The Congress was to be held at Calcutta this year. Nilratan went down thither with his wife to attend the sittings. Nabendu accompanied them.
Labanya said to her sister in soothing tones: "Don't be upset about it, dear; I will see what I can do to prevent it." Babu Nilratan, the husband of Labanya, was a pleader at Buxar. When the autumn was over, Nabendu received an invitation from Labanya to pay them a visit, and he started for Buxar greatly pleased.
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