As the months passed, the magistrate sahib often came with our sahib into the yard as if to see the school, but when I saw his smile towards me, I felt, though I never dared say so, that he came on purpose to see me. One day, as he turned to go out, I overheard this remark: “He is quite small yet, perhaps I had better wait awhile.” This startled me, and made me fear that I might never grow larger, and always have to remain. This, then, was the reason why I was not taken away. I at once made up my mind that I would grow, make myself taller by some means. The first step was to find out how tall I was, so I stood by a post in the house, and had one of the boys mark with a pencil my height, and to conceal my object, I made a similar mark for him on another post, suggesting that every Sunday morning we would come to the posts and see how much we had grown during the week. I studied the subject very carefully. I concluded I must eat more, that I must take more exercise, walk, run and leap, and especially to practice on the bars, and suspend myself from them by my arms and chin. I had serious thoughts of tying a rope to each of my legs, with stones at the other ends to hang down over the foot of the charpoy at night, but fear of the ridicule of the boys prevented me doing this. I found myself when walking or sitting in school, straightening up so as to be as tall as possible. I often ran to a little hillock outside where there was a good breeze. I then expanded my chest; took in long breaths to see if I could not swell and make myself broader. I swung my arms around, drew them backwards, upwards and downwards, turned somersaults, as if bent on becoming an acrobat.