The dismantling over, they demanded money, or else they would not go on.
The cashier strongly objected. How could payment be made before the work
was completed? At this the magicians got wild and twisted up the building
most fearsomely, so that men and brickwork got mixed together, bodies
inside walls and only head and shoulders showing.
It had altogether the look of a thoroughly devilish business, as I told my
eldest brother. "You see," said I, "the kind of thing it is. We had better
call upon God to help us!" But try as I might to anathematise them in the
name of God, my heart felt like breaking and no words would come. Then I
awoke.
A curious dream, was it not? Calcutta in the hands of Satan and growing
diabolically, within the darkness of an unholy mist!
SHAZADPUR,
_June_ 1891.
The schoolmasters of this place paid me a visit yesterday.
They stayed on and on, while for the life of me I could not find a word to
say. I managed a question or so every five minutes, to which they offered
the briefest replies; and then I sat vacantly, twirling my pen, and
scratching my head.
At last I ventured on a question about the crops, but being schoolmasters
they knew nothing whatever about crops.
About their pupils I had already asked them everything I could think of,
so I had to start over again: How many boys had they in the school? One
said eighty, another said a hundred and seventy-five.
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