The young men around burst out laughing; Bandhu looking perplexed. His mind, drugged with superstition, was too dull to take in at once the wit of the ancient poet of Hindustan. But a Brahmin had approached the spot whilst Prem Chand was speaking, and had listened with a countenance darkened by anger. This was the same Brahmin as he who had pretended to find out by divination that Bandhu was a Chhatri; while the real truth was that the boy's father was a herdsman, and that the string which his fancy had turned into a janeo, was in fact only one used for tying up goats. The wise Brahmin knew nothing of this, and merely said, for the sake of a few rupees, what Farebwala told him to say. For the bribe of a hundred rupees, he would have declared the herdsman's child to be the son of a rajah. "Who are you, O ass, and son of an ass, who would pour contempt on holy devotees!" cried the angry Brahmin. The youths around, easily moved to mirth or to mockery—as the chaff is whirled round by a light puff of wind—joined in the insulting Cry, "O ass, and son of an ass!" Prem Chand kept his temper, and waited till the noise had sunk into silence, before he made reply to the Brahmin. "I came for a day's hospitality, I came with a message from the king," he began. But the Brahmin cut him short with the words, "We want neither you nor your message! The jackal who sneaks into the camp, finds there nothing to eat, but blows. Go to him who sent you, and come near us no more!" "Go back to him who sent you!" echoed the youths; and one of them, picking up a handful of dust, threw it over the messenger's pure white garments. "Is this your treatment of strangers who seek your hospitality?" said Prem Chand. "Is it not written in the Rájneet, 'Even towards an enemy going to our house the offices of hospitality must be exercised, as the tree impedes not even the woodcutter who stands under its shade.'" The mild manner in which insult had been borne, and the graceful proverb so aptly quoted, were not without some effect. Prem Chand was suffered to retire without further molestation. The hospitality denied to him by Bandhu and his companions, the king's messenger found in the tent of a poor shepherd. Prem Chand, though baffled in his first attempt to deliver his message, had by no means lost hope.