Sure enough in the street below was a
Kabuliwallah, walking along slowly. He
wore loose soiled traditional clothing of his
people and had a big turban; there was a
bag on his back, and he carried boxes of
grapes in his hand. I cannot tell how my
daughter felt at the sight of this man, but
she began to call out to him loudly.
"Ah!" I thought, "He will come in, and my
seventeenth chapter will never be
finished!" At that exact moment the
Kabuliwallah turned and looked up at Mini.
When she saw this, overcome by terror,
she fled looking for her mother's
protection. Mini had a blind belief that inside the bag, which the
big Kabuliwallah carried, there were perhaps two or three other
children like her. The pedlar, in the meanwhile entered my
doorway, and greeted me with a smiling face.
The situation of my hero and my
heroine in the seventeenth chapter was
so precarious that my fi