and--oh, _lakhs_ of my friends
tell me about it in the bazars when I talk to them.'

'Oh, they do--do they? What do they say, Tods?'

Tods tucked his feet under his red flannel dressing-gown and said--'I
must _fink_.'

The Legal Member waited patiently. Then Tods, with infinite
compassion--

'You don't speak my talk, do you, Councillor _Sahib_?'

'No; I am sorry to say I do not,' said the Legal Member.

'Very well,' said Tods, 'I must _fink_ in English.'

He spent a minute putting his ideas in order, and began very slowly,
translating in his mind from the vernacular to English, as many
Anglo-Indian children do. You must remember that the Legal Member
helped him on by questions when he halted, for Tods was not equal to
the sustained flight of oratory that follows.

'Ditta Mull says, "This thing is the talk of a child, and was made up
by fools." But _I_ don't think you are a fool, Councillor _Sahib_,'
said Tods hastily. 'You caught my goat. This is what Ditta Mull
says--'I am not a fool, and why should the Sirkar say I am a child? I
can see if the land is good and if the landlord is good. If I am a
fool, the sin is upon my own head. For five years I take my ground
for which I have saved money, and a wife I take too, and a little son
is born." Ditta Mull has one daughter now, but he _says_ he will have
a son soon. And he says, "At the end of five years, by this new
_bundobust_, I must go. If I do not go, I must get fresh seals and
_takkus_-stamps on the papers, perhaps in the middle of the harvest,
and to go to the law-courts once is wisdom, but to go twice is
_Jehannum_." 'That is _quite_ true,' explained Tods gravely. 'All my
friends say so. And Ditta Mull says, "Always fresh _takkus_ and
paying money to _vakils_ and _chaprassis_ and law-courts every five
years, or else the landlord makes me go. Why do I want to go? Am I a
fool? If I am a fool and do not know, after forty years, good land
when I see it, let me die! But if the new _bundobust_ says for
_fifteen_ years, that is good and wise. My little son is a man, and I
am burnt, and he takes the ground or another ground, paying only once
for the _takkus_-stamps on the papers, and his little son is born,
and at the end of fifteen years is a man too. But what profit is
there in five years and fresh papers? Nothing but _dikh_, trouble,
_dikh_. We are not young men who take these lands, but old ones--not
farmers, but tradesmen with a little money--and for