"Report saith thy house is rich enough in them already," suggested the usurer after a pause.
Jaimul's big white eyebrows met over his broad nose. "What then, bunniah-ji?" he asked haughtily.
Anunt Râm made haste to change the subject, whereat Jaimul, smiling softly, told the usurer that maybe more jewels would be needed with next seed grain, since if the auguries were once more propitious, the women purposed bringing home his grandson's bride ere another year had sped. The usurer smiled an evil smile.
"Set thy seal to this also," he said, when the seed grain had been measured; "the rules demand it. A plague, say I, on all these new-fangled papers the sahib-logue ask of us. Look you! how I have to pay for the stamps and fees; and then you old ones say we new ones are extortionate. We must live, O zemindar-ji![[5]] even as thou livest."
"Live!" retorted the old man with another chuckle. "Wherefore not! The land is good enough for you and for me. There is no fault in the land!"
"Ay! it is good enough for me and for you," echoed the usurer slowly. He inverted the pronouns--that was all.
So Jaimul, as he had done ever since he could remember, walked over the bare plain with noiseless feet, and watched the sun flash on the golden grain as it flew from his thin brown fingers. And once again the guttural chant kept time to his silent steps.
"Wheat grains grow to wheat,
And the seed of a tare to tare;
Who knows if man's soul will meet