thing which occurred to nobody was to take him there, and when I heard of the matter the assistant-surgeon had just left for a distant place, passing on his way the gate of the house in which the man lay.  This was a bad case, but there is little reason to hope that it was altogether exceptional.  I am afraid there can be no question at all that hundreds of the deaths put down to snake-bite by village punchayets every year might with more truth be registered as “cured to death.”

XII

THE COBRA BUNGALOW

A STORY OF A MONEYLENDER

Beharil Surajmul was the greatest moneylender in Dowlutpoor.  He was a man of rare talents.  He remembered the face of every man who had at any time come to borrow money of him since he began to work, as a little boy, in his father’s office, so that it was impossible to deceive him.  He had also such a miraculous skill in the making out of accounts that a poor man who had come to him in extremity for a loan of fifty rupees, to meet the expenses of his daughter’s marriage, might go on making payments for the remainder of his life without reducing the debt by one rupee.  In fact, it seemed to increase with each payment.

And if the matter went into court, Beharilal never failed to show that there was still a balance due to him much larger than the original loan.  But so courteous and pleasant was the Seth in his manner to all that such matters never went into court until the right time, of which he was an infallible judge, for he knew the private affairs of every family in Dowlutpoor.  Then a decree was obtained and the debtor’s house, or land, was sold to defray the debt, Beharilal himself being usually the purchaser, though not, of course, in his own name, for he was a prudent man.

By these means Beharilal had become possessed of large estates, which he managed with such skill that they yielded to him revenues which they had never yielded to the former owners of them, while his tenants, who were mostly former owners, grew daily more deeply involved in their pecuniary obligations to him, and therefore entertained no thought of leaving him, for he could put them into prison any day if he chose.  Their contentment gave him great satisfaction, and he treated them with benevolence, giving them advances of money for all their necessary expenses and appropriating the whole of their crops at the harvest to repay himself.  He bound them to buy all that they had need of at his shop, so that he made profit off them on both sides.