"Is not the boy over twelve?"

"No," said my father.

I was then only eleven, but looked older than my age.

"You must pay the full fare for him," said the station master.

My father's eyes flashed as, without a word, he took out a currency note
from his box and handed it to the station master. When they brought my
father his change he flung it disdainfully back at them, while the
station master stood abashed at this exposure of the meanness of his
implied doubt.

The golden temple of Amritsar comes back to me like a dream. Many a
morning have I accompanied my father to this _Gurudarbar_ of the Sikhs
in the middle of the lake. There the sacred chanting resounds
continually. My father, seated amidst the throng of worshippers, would
sometimes add his voice to the hymn of praise, and finding a stranger
joining in their devotions they would wax enthusiastically cordial, and
we would return loaded with the sanctified offerings of sugar crystals
and other sweets.

One day my father invited one of the chanting choir to our place and got
him to sing us some of their sacred songs. The man went away probably
more than satisfied with the reward he received. The result was that we
had to take stern measures of self-defence,--such an insistent army of
singers invaded us. When they found our house impregnable, the musicians
began to waylay us in the streets. And as we went out for our walk in
the morning, every now and then would appear a _Tambura_,[26] slung over
a shoulder, at which we felt like game birds at the sight of the muzzle
of the hunter's gun. Indeed, so wary did we become that the twang of the
_Tambura_, from a distance, scared us away and utterly failed to bag us.

When evening fell, my father would sit out in the verandah facing the
garden. I would then be summoned to sing to him. The moon has risen; its
beams, passing though the trees, have fallen on the verandah floor; I am
singing in the _Behaga_ mode:

O Companion in the darkest passage of life....

My father with bowed head and clasped hands is intently listening. I can
recall this evening scene even now.

I have told of my father's amusement on hearing from Srikantha Babu of
my maiden attempt at a devotional poem. I am reminded how, later, I had
my recompense. On the occasion of one of our _Magh_ festivals several of
the hymns were of my composition. One of them was

"The eye sees thee not, who art the pupil of every eye...."

My father was then