eins
between his teeth and prancing with his feet. He had also to wrestle
with his little charge, and if he could not, by a wrestler's trick, fall
on his back defeated at the end, a great outcry was certain.

About this time Anukul was transferred to a district on the banks of the
Padma. On his way through Calcutta he bought his son a little go-cart.
He bought him also a yellow satin waistcoat, a gold-laced cap, and some
gold bracelets and anklets. Raicharan was wont to take these out, and
put them on his little charge with ceremonial pride, whenever they went
for a walk.

Then came the rainy season, and day after day the rain poured down in
torrents. The hungry river, like an enormous serpent, swallowed down
terraces, villages, cornfields, and covered with its flood the tall
grasses and wild casuarinas on the sand-banks. From time to time there
was a deep thud, as the river-banks crumbled. The unceasing roar of
the rain current could be beard from far away. Masses of foam, carried
swiftly past, proved to the eye the swiftness of the stream.

One afternoon the rain cleared. It was cloudy, but cool and bright.
Raicharan's little despot did not want to stay in on such a fine
afternoon. His lordship climbed into the go-cart. Raicharan, between the
shafts, dragged him slowly along till he reached the rice-fields on the
banks of the river. There was no one in the fields, and no boat on the
stream. Across the water, on the farther side, the clouds were rifted in
the west. The silent ceremonial of the setting sun was revealed in all
its glowing splendour. In the midst of that stillness the child, all of
a sudden, pointed with his finger in front of him and cried: "Chan-nal
Pitty fow."

Close by on a mud-flat stood a large Kadamba tree in full flower. My
lord, the baby, looked at it with greedy eyes, and Raicharan knew his
meaning. Only a short time before he had made, out of these very
flower balls, a small go-cart; and the child had been so entirely happy
dragging it about with a string, that for the whole day Raicharan was
not made to put on the reins at all. He was promoted from a horse into a
groom.

But Raicharan had no wish that evening to go splashing knee-deep through
the mud to reach the flowers. So he quickly pointed his finger in the
opposite direction, calling out: "Oh, look, baby, look! Look at the
bird." And with all sorts of curious noises he pushed the go-cart
rapidly away from the tree.

But a child, d