"You cannot see him now," said the orderly peon icily.
Nabendu took out a couple of rupees from his pocket. The peon at once salaamed him and said: "There are five of us, sir." Immediately Nabendu pulled out a ten-rupee note, and handed it to him.
He was sent for by the Magistrate, who was writing in his dressing-gown and bedroom slippers. Nabendu salaamed him. The Magistrate pointed to a chair with his finger, and without raising his eyes from the paper before him said: "What can I do for you, Babu?"
Fingering his watch-chain nervously, Nabendu said is shaky tones: "Yesterday you were good enough to call at my place, sir—"
The Sahib knitted his brows, and, lifting just one eye from his paper, said: "I called at your place! Babu, what nonsense are you talking?"
"Beg your pardon, sir," faltered out Nabendu. "There has been a mistake—some confusion," and wet with perspiration, he tumbled out of the room somehow. And that night, as he lay tossing on his bed, a distant dream-like voice came into his ear with a recurring persistency: "Babu, you are a howling idiot."
On his way home, Nabendu came to the conclusion that the Magistrate denied having called, simply because he was highly offended.
So he explained to Labanya that he had been out purchasing rose-water. No sooner had he uttered the words than half-a-dozen chuprassis wearing the Collectorate badge made their appearance, and after salaaming Nabendu, stood there grinning.
"Have they come to arrest you because you subscribed to the Congress fund?" whispered Labanya with a smile.
The six peons displayed a dozen rows of teeth and said: "Bakshish—Babu-Sahib."