"Think Of It," Began The Babu, And Stopped Short, Prevented From
Going On By His Exuberant Hilarity.
"Just think of it!
The whole
transaction is to cost me only ten rupees.... I offered five at
first... but he would not.... He said this was a sacred matter.....
But ten he could not resist! Ho, ho, ho.... "
At last we learned the story. All the metempsychoses depend on
the imagination of the family Gurus, who receive for their kind
offices from one hundred to one hundred and fifty rupees a year.
Every rite is accompanied by a more or less considerable addition
to the purse of the insatiable family Brahman, but the happy events
pay better than the sad ones. Knowing all this, the Babu asked
the Brahman point-blank to perform a false samadhi, that is to say,
to feign an inspiration and to announce to the sorrowing mother
that her late son's will had acted consciously in all the circumstances;
that he brought about his end in the body of the flying fox, that
he was tired of that grade of transmigration, that he longed for
death in order to attain a higher position in the animal kingdom,
that he is happy, and that he is deeply indebted to the sahib who
broke his neck and so freed him from his abject embodiment.
Besides, the observant eye of our all-knowing Babu had not failed
to remark that a she-buffalo of the Guru's was expecting a calf,
and that the Guru was yearning to sell it to Sham Rao.
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