“But it has been a sore trouble to me,” cried the young Sahib quickly; “I could no more sit down quietly under that burden of debt, than I could calmly endure to wear a chain of iron around my neck. My life has been one perpetual effort to cast off that chain; link by link I have broken it away. I lived from the first on half my income—lived as no other English gentleman in my position would do. When my salary was increased, I did not increase my expenses. I have endured to be thought stingy and inhospitable, in a land where not to have the hand and the door open is esteemed a great reproach. I could not give alms or entertain guests on the money that was really another’s; it was better in man’s sight to be unjustly considered mean, than in the sight of God to be dishonest.”