extraordinary
pains to get the better of me. I was then entirely unsophisticated, my
own wants were few, and I was not at all clever in distinguishing
between good and bad faith. I have often gone on imagining that I was
assisting with their school fees students to whom fees were as
superfluous as their unread books.

Once a long-haired youth brought me a letter from an imaginary sister in
which she asked me to take under my protection this brother of hers who
was suffering from the tyranny of a stepmother as imaginary as herself.
The brother was not imaginary, that was evident enough. But his sister's
letter was as unnecessary for me as expert marksmanship to bring down a
bird which cannot fly.

Another young fellow came and informed me that he was studying for the
B.A., but could not go up for his examination as he was afflicted with
some brain trouble. I felt concerned, but being far from proficient in
medical science, or in any other science, I was at a loss what advice to
give him. But he went on to explain that he had seen in a dream that my
wife had been his mother in a former birth, and that if he could but
drink some water which had touched her feet he would get cured. "Perhaps
you don't believe in such things," he concluded with a smile. My belief,
I said, did not matter, but if he thought he could get cured, he was
welcome, with which I procured him a phial of water which was supposed
to have touched my wife's feet. He felt immensely better, he said. In
the natural course of evolution from water he came to solid food. Then
he took up his quarters in a corner of my room and began to hold
smoking parties with his friends, till I had to take refuge in flight
from the smoke laden air. He gradually proved beyond doubt that his
brain might have been diseased, but it certainly was not weak.

After this experience it took no end of proof before I could bring
myself to put my trust in children of previous births. My reputation
must have spread for I next received a letter from a daughter. Here,
however, I gently but firmly drew the line.

All this time my friendship with Babu Srish Chandra Magundar ripened
apace. Every evening he and Prija Babu would come to this little room of
mine and we would discuss literature and music far into the night.
Sometimes a whole day would be spent in the same way. The fact is my
_self_ had not yet been moulded and nourished into a strong and definite
personality and so my life dri