"One word more," he said, "have you called in your loan of Rs. 20,000?"

Hari Babu looked at him suspiciously. "Who told you so?"

"I heard it from a reliable source."

"It must have been Rámanáth, who is always seeking to make
mischief. Well, yes, I did ask Gopál to repay me, not that I distrusted
him but because I wanted to invest the money in land."

Shám Babu felt indignant at the man's gross selfishness, but he
concealed his feelings and merely remarked that he would not leave
Calcutta till the mortgage was settled. Next morning he insisted on
Hari Babu accompanying him to Gopál's house at Entally. They found the
debtor apparently in high spirits, although he admitted that certain
speculations had turned out badly. When pressed by Shám Babu to repay
the loan, he asked for time, pleading that his whole capital was locked
up. Shám Babu, however, was obdurate, and with his brother-in-law's
help he brought such pressure to bear on Gopál that the latter sulkily
agreed to give him a mortgage on an ancestral estate in the Mufassil
(interior of Bengal). Shám Babu stuck closely to him until the bargain
had been fulfilled, and managed matters so expeditiously that the
mortgage deed was drawn up, executed, and registered in a week. Though
he had now something tangible to rely on in case of accidents still
he was not happy, for Gopál discontinued paying interest on the loan
and he did not dare to press him, lest he should precipitate a crash.

Misfortunes never come singly. Soon after settling this unpleasant
affair, Shám Babu was laid low by fever; and doctor's bills trenched
sadly on his slender resources. Susil, too, the hope of the family,