After he had gone a little way, it struck the farmer that it would not do to let him display his strength in this way and that it would be better if he took the rice away at night.  So he had the Strong man called back and told him that there was one job which he had forgotten to finish; he had put two bundles of sahai grass into the trough to steep and had forgotten to twist it into string.  Without a word the Strong man wait and picked the sabai out of the water and began to twist it, but he could tell at once by the feel that the sabai had only just been placed in the water and he charged the farmer with playing a trick on him.  The farmer swore that there was no trick and, rather than quarrel, the Strong man went on with the work.

While he was so engaged the farmer offered him some tobacco, and the Strong man took it without washing and wiping his hands.  Now no one should prepare or chew tobacco while twisting sabai; if one does not first wash and dry one’s hands one’s strength will go.  The Strong man knew this, but he was so angry at being called back on false pretences that he forgot all about it.

But when he had finished the string and the farmer said that he might go, he essayed to take up the two bandis of rice as before.  To his sorrow he found that he could not lift them.  Then he saw the mistake that he had made.  He had to leave one bandi behind and divide the other into two halves and sling them on the bamboo and carry them off with him.

The Strong man’s cultivation did not prosper, and after three or four years he found himself at the end of his means and had again to take service with a farmer.

One day when field work was in full swing the Strong man had a quarrel with his new master.  So when he had finished the morning’s ploughing he pulled the iron point of the ploughshare out of its socket and snapped it in two.  Then he took the pieces to his master and explained that it had caught on the stump of a tree and got broken.  The master took the broken share to the blacksmith and had it mended.  The next day the Strong man went through the same performance and his master had again to go the blacksmith.  The same thing happened several days running, till at last the farmer decided to keep watch and see what really happened.  So he hid himself and saw the Strong man snap the ploughshare in two; but in view of such a display of strength he was much too frightened to let his servant know that he had found out the trick that was being played on him.  He took the pieces to the blacksmith as usual and at the smithy he found some of his friends and told them what had happened.  They advised him to set the Strong man to twisting sabai string and then by some pretext induce him to take tobacco.  The farmer did as they advised and in about a fortnight the Strong man lost all his strength and became as other men.  Then his master dismissed him and he had to go back to his house and his strength never returned to him.