boy's scorn. On no pretext did we
wear socks or shoes till we had passed our tenth year. In the cold
weather a second cotton tunic over the first one sufficed. It never
entered our heads to consider ourselves ill-off for that reason. It was
only when old Niyamat, the tailor, would forget to put a pocket into one
of our tunics that we complained, for no boy has yet been born so poor
as not to have the wherewithal to stuff his pockets; nor, by a merciful
dispensation of providence, is there much difference between the wealth
of boys of rich and of poor parentage. We used to have a pair of
slippers each, but not always where we had our feet. Our habit of
kicking the slippers on ahead, and catching them up again, made them
work none the less hard, through effectually defeating at every step the
reason of their being.

Our elders were in every way at a great distance from us, in their dress
and food, living and doing, conversation and amusement. We caught
glimpses of these, but they were beyond our reach. Elders have become
cheap to modern children; they are too readily accessible, and so are
all objects of desire. Nothing ever came so easily to us. Many a trivial
thing was for us a rarity, and we lived mostly in the hope of attaining,
when we were old enough, the things which the distant future held in
trust for us. The result was that what little we did get we enjoyed to
the utmost; from skin to core nothing was thrown away. The modern child
of a well-to-do family nibbles at only half the things he gets; the
greater part of his world is wasted on him.

Our days were spent in the servants' quarters in the south-east corner
of the outer apartments. One of our servants was Shyam, a dark chubby
boy with curly locks, hailing from the District of Khulna. He would put
me into a selected spot and, tracing a chalk line all round, warn me
with solemn face and uplifted finger of the perils of transgressing this
ring. Whether the threatened danger was material or spiritual I never
fully understood, but a great fear used to possess me. I had read in the
Ramayana of the tribulations of Sita for having left the ring drawn by
Lakshman, so it was not possible for me to be sceptical of its potency.

Just below the window of this room was a tank with a flight of masonry
steps leading down into the water; on its west bank, along the garden
wall, an immense banyan tree; to the south a fringe of cocoanut palms.
Ringed round as I was near thi