t must have been Tennyson--or
was it Wordsworth? I never could keep poetry in my head."

Nalini thought that an F.A. might have remembered Longfellow's Psalm
of Life, but he refrained from airing superior knowledge.

"Do you know any mathematics?" he inquired.

"Mathematics!" replied Pulin joyously. "Why, they're my forte---I
am quite at home in arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. Please ask me
any question you like."

"Well, let us have Prop. 30, Book I. of Euclid."

Pulin rattled off Proposition 13 of that book, without the aid of a
diagram. Nalini now saw that the young man's mental equipment was
of the slenderest description. He said, "Well, you may call on me
another day, when I may be able to tell you of some vacancy".

Pulin, however, would take no denial. He became so insistent
that Nalini reluctantly gave him a letter of introduction to Babu
Kaliprasanna Som, Secretary of the Ramnagar High School, who, he
said, was looking about him for a fourth master. Pulin lost no time
in delivering it and was immediately appointed to the vacant post.

English education in Bengal is not regarded as a key which opens
the door of a glorious literature, but simply and solely as a
stepping-stone in the path of worldly success. The Department seems to
aim at turning out clerks and lawyers in reckless profusion. Moreover,
academic degrees are tariffed in the marriage market. The
"F.A." commands a far higher price than the "entrance-passed," while
an M.A. has his pick of the richest and prettiest girls belonging to
his class. Hence parents take a keen interest in their boys' progress
and constantly urge them to excel in class. With such lessons ringing
in his ears, the Bengali schoolboy is consumed with a desire to master
his text-books. The great difficulty is to tear him away from them,
and insist on his giving sufficient time to manly games. When a new
teacher takes the helm, he is closely watched in order to test his
competence. The older lads take a cruel pleasure in plying him with
questions which they have already solved from the Dictionary. Pulin
did not emerge from this ordeal with credit, and the boys concocted
a written complaint of his shortcomings, which they despatched to
the Secretary of the School Committee, The answer was a promise to
redress their grievances.

At 10.30 next morning Kaliprasanna Babu entered Pulin's classroom and
stood listening to his method of teaching English literature. Presently
one o