her to Coventry. They, therefore, forbade
the villagers to admit her into their houses, and the shopkeepers to
supply her wants. Hiramani soon found Kadampur too hot to hold her
and took her departure for ever, to every one's intense relief.

CHAPTER XV

A Tame Rabbit.

When a penniless Hindu marries into a wealthy family he is sorely
tempted to live with, and upon, his father-in-law. But the ease
thus secured is unattended by dignity. The gharjamai, "son-in-law of
the house," as he is styled, shocks public opinion, which holds it
disgraceful for an able-bodied man to eat the bread of idleness. Pulin
incurred a certain degree of opprobrium by quartering himself on
Debendra Babu; neighbours treated him with scant courtesy, and the
very household servants made him feel that he was a person of small
importance. He bore contumely with patience, looking forward to
the time when Debendra Babu's decease would give him a recognised
position. His wife was far more ambitious. She objected strongly to
sharing her husband's loss of social standing and frequently reproached
him with submitting to be her father's annadas (rice-slave).

So, one morning, he poured his sorrows into Nalini's sympathetic ear.

"Mahasay," he said, "you know that people are inclined to blame me
for living in idleness, and I do indeed long to chalk out a career
for myself. But I don't know how to set about it and have no patron to
back me. Do you happen to know of any job which would give me enough
to live on? Salary is less an object with me than prospects. I would
gladly accept a mastership in some high school."

"You are quite right in seeking independence," replied Nalini, "and
I shall be glad to help you. But lower-grade teachers are miserably
paid, and their prospects are no better. It is only graduates who
can aspire to a head-mastership. Are you one?"

"No, sir, but I passed the F.A. examination in 1897."

"Ah, then, you are a Diamond Jubilee man--that's a good omen,"
rejoined Nalini, with a shade of sarcasm in his voice. "What were
your English text-books?"

"I read Milton's Absalom and Achitophel, Dryden's Holy Grail, and many
other poems, but I'm not sure of their titles after all these years."

Nalini suspected that his friend's English lore was somewhat rusty. In
order to test him further, he asked, "Can you tell me who wrote
'Life is real, life is earnest,'--that line applies to you!"

Pulin fidgeted about before answering. "I