Haralal presented the letter which Venu had written to his father. This only made Adharlal all the more furious.

‘What’s all this?’ he shouted, ‘I’ll call for the police! My son has not yet come of age—and you have smuggled him out of the country! I’ll bet my soul you’ve lent him a few hundred rupees, and then taken a note of hand for three thousand! But I am not going to be bound by this!’

‘I never advanced him any money at all,’ said Haralal.

‘Then how did he find it?’ said Adharlal, ‘Do you mean to tell me he broke open your safe and stole it?’

Haralal stood silent.

Ratikanta sarcastically remarked: ‘I don’t believe this fellow ever set hands on as much as three thousand rupees in his life.’

When Haralal left the house he seemed to have lost the power of dreading anything, or even of being anxious. His mind seemed to refuse to work. Directly he entered the lane he saw a carriage waiting before his own lodging. For a moment he felt certain that it was Venu’s. It was impossible to believe that his calamity could be so hopelessly final.

Haralal went up quickly, but found an English assistant from the firm sitting inside the carriage. The man came out when he saw Haralal and took him by the hand and asked him: ‘Why didn’t you go out by train this morning?’ The servant had told the Manager his suspicions and he had sent this man to find out.

Haralal answered: ‘Notes to the amount of three thousand rupees are missing.’

The man asked how that could have happened.

Haralal remained silent.

The man said to Haralal: ‘Let us go upstairs together and see where you keep your money.’ They went up to the room and counted the money and made a thorough search of the house.

When the mother saw this she could not contain herself any longer. She came out before the stranger and said: ‘Baba, what has happened?’ He answered in broken Hindustani that some money had been stolen.

‘Stolen!’ the mother cried, ‘Why! How could it be stolen? Who could do such a dastardly thing?’ Haralal said to her: ‘Mother, don’t say a word.’

The man collected the remainder of the money and told Haralal to come with him to the Manager. The mother barred the way and said: ‘Sir, where are you taking my son? I have brought him up, starving and straining to do honest work. My son would never touch money belonging to others.’

The Englishman, not knowing Bengali, said, ‘Achcha! Achcha!’ Haralal told his mother not to be anxious; he would explain it all to the Manager and soon be back again. The mother entreated him, with a distressed voice, ‘Baba, you haven’t taken a morsel of food all morning.’

Haralal stepped into the carriage and drove away, and the mother sank to the ground in the anguish of her heart.

The Manager said to Haralal: ‘Tell me the truth. What did happen?’