“But there was a money-lender in the garden hidden among the marigolds”—the child looked at the ball of crumpled blossoms in its hands—“ay, among the yellow marigolds, and he heard the Gods talking. He was a covetous man, and of a black heart, and he desired that lakh of rupees for himself. So he went to the mendicant and said, ‘O brother, how much do the pious give thee daily?’ The mendicant said, ‘I cannot tell. Sometimes a little rice, sometimes a little pulse, and a few cowries, and, it has been, pickled mangoes and dried fish.’”
“That is good,” said the child, smacking its lips.
“Then said the money-lender, ‘Because I have long watched thee, and learned to love thee and thy patience, I will give thee now five rupees for all thy earnings of the three days to come. There is only a bond to sign on the matter.’ But the mendicant said, ‘Thou art mad. In two months I do not receive the worth of five rupees,’ and he told the thing to his wife that evening. She, being a woman, said, ‘When did money-lender ever make a bad bargain? The wolf runs through the corn for the sake of the fat deer. Our fate is in the hands of the Gods. Pledge it not even for three days.’
“So the mendicant returned to the money-lender, and would not sell. Then that wicked man sat all day before him, offering more and more for those three days’ earnings. First, ten, fifty, and a hundred rupees; and then, for he did not know when the Gods would pour down their gifts, rupees by the thousand, till he had offered half a lakh of rupees. Upon this sum the mendicant’s wife shifted her counsel, and the mendicant signed the bond, and the money was paid in silver; great white bullocks bringing it by the cart-load. But saving only all that money, the mendicant received nothing from the Gods at all, and the heart of the money-lender was uneasy on account of expectation. Therefore at noon of the third day the money-lender went into the temple to spy upon the councils of the Gods, and to learn in what manner that gift might arrive. Even as he was making his prayers, a crack between the stones of the floor gaped, and, closing, caught him by the heel. Then he heard the Gods walking in the temple in the darkness of the columns, and Shiv called to his son Ganesh, saying, ‘Son, what hast thou done in regard to the lakh of rupees for the mendicant?’ And Ganesh woke, for the money-lender heard the dry rustle of his trunk uncoiling, and he answered, ‘Father, one half of the money has been paid, and the debtor for the other half I hold here fast by the heel.’”
The child bubbled with laughter. “And the money-lender paid the mendicant?” it said.
“Surely, for he whom the Gods hold by the heel must pay to the uttermost. The money was paid at evening, all silver, in great carts, and thus Ganesh did his work.”
“Nathu! Oh[=e], Nathu!”
A woman was calling in the dusk by the door of the courtyard.
The child began to wriggle. “That is my mother,” it said.
“Go then, littlest,” answered Gobind; “but stay a moment.”