gard for its author. Most of
them were certain that it was not my own composition. One said he could
produce the book from which it was copied, but was not pressed to do so;
the process of proving is such a nuisance to those who want to believe.
Finally the number of seekers after poetic fame began to increase
alarmingly; moreover their methods were not those which are recognised
as roads to moral improvement.

Nowadays there is nothing strange in a youngster writing verses. The
glamour of poesy is gone. I remember how the few women who wrote poetry
in those days were looked upon as miraculous creations of the Deity. If
one hears to-day that some young lady does not write poems one feels
sceptical. Poetry now sprouts long before the highest Bengali class is
reached; so that no modern Gobinda Babu would have taken any notice of
the poetic exploit I have recounted.

PART III

(10) _Srikantha Babu_

At this time I was blessed with a hearer the like of whom I shall never
get again. He had so inordinate a capacity for being pleased as to have
utterly disqualified him for the post of critic in any of our monthly
Reviews. The old man was like a perfectly ripe Alfonso mango--not a
trace of acid or coarse fibre in his composition. His tender
clean-shaven face was rounded off by an all-pervading baldness; there
was not the vestige of a tooth to worry the inside of his mouth; and his
big smiling eyes gleamed with a constant delight. When he spoke in his
soft deep voice, his mouth and eyes and hands all spoke likewise. He was
of the old school of Persian culture and knew not a word of English. His
inseparable companions were a hubble-bubble at his left, and a _sitar_
on his lap; and from his throat flowed song unceasing.

Srikantha Babu had no need to wait for a formal introduction, for none
could resist the natural claims of his genial heart. Once he took us to
be photographed with him in some big English photographic studio. There
he so captivated the proprietor with his artless story, in a jumble of
Hindusthani and Bengali, of how he was a poor man, but badly wanted
this particular photograph taken, that the man smilingly allowed him a
reduced rate. Nor did such bargaining sound at all incongruous in that
unbending English establishment, so naive was Srikantha Babu, so
unconscious of any possibility of giving offence. He would sometimes
take me along to a European missionary's house. There, also, with his
pla