‘Nay, but with our people, money having passed, it is their right; as we should turn against a shoeseller in regard to shoes if those wore out. If ever I make a book you shall see and judge.’ ‘And the parrot said to the falling tree, Wait, brother, till I fetch a prop!’ said Gobind with a grim chuckle. ‘God has given me eighty years, and it may be some over. I cannot look for more than day granted by day and as a favour at this tide. Be swift.’ ‘In what manner is it best to set about the task.’ said I, ‘O chiefest of those who string pearls with their tongue?’ ‘How do I know? Yet’--he thought for a little--‘how should I not know? God has made very many heads, but there is only one heart in all the world among your people or my people. They are children in the matter of tales.’ ‘But none are so terrible as the little ones, if a man misplace a word, or in a second telling vary events by so much as one small devil.’ ‘Ay, I also have told tales to the little ones, but do thou this--’ His old eyes fell on the gaudy paintings of the wall, the blue and red dome, and the flames of the poinsettias beyond. ‘Tell them first of those things that thou hast seen and they have seen together. Thus their knowledge will piece out thy imperfections. Tell them of what thou alone hast seen, then what thou hast heard, and since they be children tell them of battles and kings, horses, devils, elephants, and angels, but omit not to tell them of love and suchlike. All the earth is full of tales to him who listens and does not drive away the poor from his door. The poor are the best of tale-tellers; for they must lay their ear to the ground every night.’ After this conversation the idea grew in my head, and Gobind was pressing in his inquiries as to the health of the book. Later, when we had been parted for months, it happened that I was to go away and far off, and I came to bid Gobind good-bye. ‘It is farewell between us now, for I go a very long journey,’ I said. ‘And I also. A longer one than thou. But what of the book?’ said he. ‘It will be born in due season if it is so ordained.’ ‘I would I could see it,’ said the old man, huddling beneath his quilt. ‘But that will not be. I die three days hence, in the night, a little before the dawn. The term of my years is accomplished.’ In nine cases out of ten a native makes no miscalculation as to the day of his death. He has the foreknowledge of the beasts in this respect. ‘Then thou wilt depart in peace, and it is good talk, for thou hast said that life is no delight to thee.’ ‘But it is a pity that our book is not born. How shall I know that there is any record of my name?’ ‘Because I promise, in the forepart of the book, preceding everything else, that it shall be written, Gobind, sadhu, of the island in the river and awaiting God in Dhunni Bhagat’s Chubara, first spoke of the book,’ said I.