PLENTY TIEED. 
exchange for £ s d, and in case, as very, often was 
the case, some others might have more extensive 
claims, requiring greater urgency in settling, and 
which, after being settled, would leave no cash surplus 
to credit of master, the chetti had taken time 
by the fore-lock, and had been patiently sitting at 
the bottom of that post for three or four hours await- 
ing the arrival of master, and all the reward he 
receives for this long-suffering and enduring patience 
is a gruff order, to “get out of that — and — and 
come back to-morrow.” As for the kanganies and 
coolies, they never did want us during working hours : 
quite the reverse. The head kangani would see e\ery- 
thing was all right; according to his own story every- 
thing, was right ^ nothing could go wrong so long as 
master trusted hint; but if he was not trusted he 
could not be responsible for what might happen. 
“Master plenty tired; no need to come out. I will 
take and bring all the names in the afternoon.” Who 
could resist this very sensible reasoning ? The master 
is “plenty tired” and he began to wonder what 
possessed him to ride out during the night until he 
remembered the paryia dogs, tom-toms, and temple 
ceremonies at Gampola. From this cause, or rather to 
avoid it, he had done a hard day’s work, the night 
previous, and so, must just turn day into night — and 
go to sleep. Of course there were no old residents 
then, in the same sense in which they are so called 
now : ail were fresh British blood, and didii ’t the 
mosquitoes increase, multiply, get fat and flourish ng ? 
Any one who hed been half-a-dozen years in the 
country was looked upon as quite an old hand, one 
who had come through some queer experience, and 
whose advice was worth taking. They had no idea, 
of ever requiring to be patched up ; there was no- 
thing the matter with them, it was a tine healthy 
climate, and of course they would shortly pick up a 
piece of land, and after this was done, as a matter 
of course also, they would go honae in three years ^ 
for did not coffee just take this time to give a very 
handsome pecuniary return, and what was the use 
remaining in Ceylon, just to watch the coffee trees, 
•after they came into crop ? And thus they went on. 
The old story, counting chickens before they were 
hatched. Worse than this, counting them before the 
eggs were laid, without ever taking into considera- 
tion the possibility that none might ever be layed ! 
There is an old Scotch saying “A stitch in time 
saves nine.” If people had only been cautious and 
careful, and put on a patch in time, how many lives 
would have been ^aved, and how many more of 
