the tradition of your forefathers, but give alms." On hearing this the people blamed him, saying, "Maccharikosiya has done away with the tradition of his family." Being ashamed he set a watch to prevent the beggars from standing at his gate, and being thus left utterly destitute they never again set eyes upon his door. Thenceforth he continued to roll money together , but he neither enjoyed it himself nor shared it with his wife and children. He lived on rice with its red powder, served with sour gruel, and wore coarse garments, being merely the filaments of roots and stalks of berries, shading his head with a parasol of leaves, and he rode upon a crazy old chariot, yoked to worn-out oxen. Thus all this wicked fellow's money [384] was as it were a cocoa-nut found by a dog . Now one day when he was going to wait upon the king he thought he would take the sub-treasurer with him, and at the moment when he reached his house he found the sub-treasurer seated in the midst of his wife and children, and eating some rice porridge prepared with powdered sugar to sweeten it and cooked with fresh ghee. On seeing Maccharikosiya he rose from his seat and said, "Come and sit on this couch, Lord High Treasurer, and have some rice porridge with me." When he saw the rice porridge, his mouth watered and he longed to partake of it, but the thought occurred to him, "If I should take some porridge, when the sub-treasurer comes to my house I shall have to make him some return of hospitality and in this way my money will be wasted. I will not eat it." Then on being pressed again and again he refused, saying, "I have already dined; I am sated." But while the sub-treasurer was enjoying his food, he sat looking on with his mouth watering, and when the meal was ended he repaired with him to the palace. On returning home he was overwhelmed with a craving for rice porridge, but thought, "If I should say I wanted to eat rice porridge, a lot of people would also want to eat it and a quantity of husked rice and the like would be wasted. I will not say a word to a creature." So night and day he passed his time thinking of nothing but porridge, but from fear of spending his money he told no one and kept his craving to himself. But being unable to bear with it he gradually grew paler and paler, and so through fear of wasting his substance he spoke of his craving to no one, and by and bye becoming very weak he lay down, hugging his bed. Then his wife came to see him and stroking his back with her hand she inquired, "Is my lord ill?" "Ill yourself!" he cried, "I am quite well." "My