"
Sham Babu felt somewhat reassured, but there was a point to be
cleared up.
"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 Ramanath, who is always seeking to make
mischief. Well, yes, I did ask Gopal to repay me, not that I distrusted
him but because I wanted to invest the money in land."
Sham 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 Gopal'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 Sham Babu to repay
the loan, he asked for time, pleading that his whole capital was locked
up. Sham Babu, however, was obdurate, and with his brother-in-law's
help he brought such pressure to bear on Gopal that the latter sulkily
agreed to give him a mortgage on an ancestral estate in the Mufassil
(interior of Bengal). Sham 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.
Pages:
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109