noon
He was , next to the Assistant Superintendent of the Forest Department of the District , a power on the road , and his audience , accordingly , listened to him with due respect . `` This was the way of it : I owed Bheem Dass one rupee and six annas for flour and pulse and ghee , and my donkey fell sick , so that he could not be forced by goad , nor by the lighting of a fire beneath him , to rise ; and I could not convey my earthenware to Moradabad and sell it , and so remove the galling of Bheem Dass 's tongue . `` Then the Thanadar came , and read script to me that was written on government paper , whereof I understood but little , save that the words were Urdu , and sounded very terrible to me , who speak Gamari only , and am a poor man . And he took my potter 's wheel from me , and bade his chuprassi beat me then , and daily thereafter at noon -- twelve strokes each day -- till I made restitution to Bheem Dass . `` Brothers , we be all poor men here , and ye know that God hath not given us understanding save to suffer stripes like beasts of burden , and to sleep and eat when we can , and beget children to succeed to our blows . '' There was a deep `` humph '' of assent when he had ceased speaking . The little man who freighted village produce from Kaladoongie to Moradabad by bullock-cart said , as he handed Ram Deen the hookah that was circling round the fire , `` A knife-thrust in the dark has settled heavier scores than thine ; '' and one suggested a blow from a weighted bamboo club , and another the evil eye ; but Ram Deen smoked in silence , and after they had all had their say he passed the hookah to his neighbor and went on : `` Whenas my back smarted shrewdly that night from the blows of the chuprassi 's shoe , so that I could not sleep , I took the oil from my chirag and anointed my back therewith .