short story 1013
CONSCIENCE AND CALCULATION
Bhajan Das and Rajen Singh were enemies of each other. A wrestler came to live in their midst. One day Bhajan Das took him aside and gave him a hundred rupees and said, “Give a good thrashing to Rajen Singh.”
Two days later, Bhajan Das was returning from the market along a lonely road when the wrestler confronted him and thrashed him.
“Wait! Wait!” shrieked Bhajan Das, “I paid you for giving a beating to Rajen Singh, not to me!”
But the wrestler went on beating him for a full minute. Then he stopped and said, “There was never any thought in my mind to thrash anybody. But you took me to be a goonda, and gave me money, and tempted me to take up such work. He gave me two hundred and fifty rupees and asked me to thrash you. My conscience and calculation of profit told me that I should oblige him. So far as your money is concerned, here it is!”
The wrestler gave Bhajan Das back his money and went his way.