One day, a merchant from out of town came into the shop. When he found that Khader was not around, he said, “Oh, the owner is not here? No worries. I will come back later,” and started walking away.

Gopala Iyer was irate. “Hey, you!” He clapped his hands. “Come back here.”

The man turned around.

“Who do you think is the owner?”

“The man who is usually here. The fair-skinned one. He buys wholesale from me.”

“Get over here!”

The man stepped into the shop.

“Why are you here?”

“I have brought samples to show.”

“Show them to me.”

The man spread out the samples on the counter.

“We will take two bolts per piece.”

“Which ones?”

“The ones you just showed me.”

“All of them?!”

“Yes, all of them.”

“You will be able to sell that much?”

“Why do you need to know?”

“I was just curious.”

“You don’t need to be curious. Just write down the order. I will sign for it.”

Luckily for him, half of that order sold out fast. But the other half just sat there. Gopala Iyer took great pains to unload it. He only showed merchandise from that order to all the customers. But it would not sell.

One day, when Khader had stepped out for lunch, one of the shop boys said to Gopala Iyer: “When you are not in the store, Khader won’t show that stock to the customers. He won’t let us show it either.”

“Listen to me carefully. Whoever comes in, make sure you show my stock first. Doesn’t matter what he does,” he ordered.

From then on, Gopala Iyer never budged from his spot. “Just you wait and see. I will set that boy straight,” he kept saying to himself. This time, he went in person to purchase the new inventory. At the Chennai warehouses, he learned that Khader had been pocketing a commission in cash for every purchase of stock he made. This piece of information came from a Pillai fellow from Tirunelveli, who had left a leading merchant and was now running his own little restaurant. The man also told Gopala Iyer that his former boss refused to accept Khader’s arrangement, and so Khader never bought any stock from him. On that trip, Gopala Iyer procured a massive inventory. In fact, it was twice as much as Khader usually procured. His plan was to get the entire stock priced soon and to sell everything by Deepavali. So he hired a lorry to transport everything from Chennai, and he took a flight to Thiruvananthapuram, where he hired a taxi to take him all the way to his shop.