the aid of two up-country servants, he was dragged to the police station, too bewildered to resist.  On their way thither they met one of Nagendra’s neighbours named Harish Chandra Pal, who stopped them and asked what was the matter.  On learning particulars of the charge, he saw how the land lay, and resolved to defeat an infamous plot.  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 Ramda 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.  On reaching the police station, Harish found the Sub-Inspector recording the statements of the witnesses.  He looked on in silence until Nagendra arrived.  Then he asked the Sub-Inspector:  “Do these people mean to say that the brass vessel belongs to Nagendra Babu?”

“Certainly,” was the reply.  “Here are three witnesses who have identified it.”

“Well, that’s strange,” said Harish; then producing the shawl and loin-cloth he said:  “These are mine, but if you ask Nagen Babu he will tell you a different story”.

“But they are mine!” roared Nagendra, “and part of the stolen property.”

“Dear me,” said Harish, “perhaps you will say that these buttons are yours too?”

“Of course they are,” was the rejoinder.

“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 Ramda has been falsely charged with stealing a brass vessel which is his own property.”

The Sub-Inspector evidently thought so too.  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.  Ramda was truly grateful to Harish Pal for having so cleverly saved him from ruin, and the whole story soon became common property.  Nagendra overheard his neighbours whispering and pointing to him significantly, and village boys called him ill-natured nicknames in the street.  His irritation was increased by recourse to the brandy bottle, and he vented it on his luckless wife.  She suffered so terribly that, one morning, Nagendra found her hanging from a rafter in his cowshed.  This suicide was the last straw.  Nagendra saved himself from prosecution for murder by a heavy bribe, and got leave from the police to burn his wife’s body.  But so universally was he execrated that not a man in the village would help him to take her body to the burning-ghat.  In dire despair he humbled himself so far as to implore Ramda’s assistance.  The magnanimous Brahman forgot his wrongs and cheerfully consented to bear a hand.  Others followed his example, and thus Nagendra was able to fulfil the rites prescribed by religion.  The lesson was not altogether lost on him.  The scales fell from his eyes; he dismissed the rascally servant, who had led him from the path of duty, and foreswore his brandy bottle.