"I suppose you mean five thousand rupees, and the rest in gold bars; well, you must purchase gold according to weight, and the best is twenty rupees a tola;--but you had better take bills, and the exchange is favourable." "No, no; no bills," said my father, "but the gold. If I remember rightly, the price of gold was high when I left Delhi, and was likely to remain so; and I have plenty of persons for my guard if robbers should attack me." "You forget me," cried the dullal, "and my percentage." "Make yourself easy," said I; "it will be paid out of the five thousand rupees; it will be about fifteen hundred, I think." "What did you say? fifteen hundred! to whom?" asked the clerk. "To this dullal," said I; "I suspect the rascal is cheating us." "Cheating! surely he is; why Mohun Das, good man, what have you been about? are you mad, to ask so much?" "Ah, it was my lord's offer and promise," said he, "and surely I shall now get it! pray what business is it of yours?" "What ought he to have?" asked my father. "One per cent. is ample," replied the other: "and you might have saved this too, if you had only applied yourself to the different sahoukars." "We were strangers," said I, "and knew not their places of residence; so we were obliged to have recourse to this rascal, who offered his services." "What! did you not take me from the Char-Minar? did you not promise me five per cent., and bind me to secrecy about the sale of your goods?" cried the dullal. "Listen to him," said my father; "he raves. Now, Meer Sahib, did not this bhurwa come begging and beseeching for employment, and when I said I would try him, and asked his terms, he said he was miserably poor, and would take whatever was given him; was it not so? And now, Punah-i-Khoda, we are to be bearded in this manner, defrauded of fifteen hundred rupees, where we have not as many cowrees to give, and made to eat dirt into the bargain. Beat him on the mouth with a shoe! spit on him! may he be defiled so that Ganges water would not purify him! may his mother, sisters, and all his female relatives be----" "Nay, my good friend," said the sahoukar's clerk, "be not thus rash and hot-headed, nor waste your breath upon so mean a wretch; since you have employed him, something must be given, it is the custom, and next time you will know better; say, may I pay him the one per cent., which will be three hundred and six rupees?" "Three hundred and six rupees! Alla, Alla! where am I to get the half?" cried my father: "for the love of the Prophet, get me off what you can; I swear by your head and eyes that I am a poor man, and only an agent; is it not so, Meer Sahib? am I not miserably poor?" "You certainly cannot afford to pay so much money as one per cent. on this large sum," I replied; "nevertheless, as such appears to be the custom, you had better give something, say one hundred and fifty rupees."