Paragraph 3

In plain words

Tuesday afternoon: the eighth of Kartik, 1289, the bright thirteenth, the twenty-fourth of October. It is about three or four o'clock. The Master is standing near the shelf where the food is kept. Balaram and M. have come together from Calcutta in one carriage and are bowing before him. When they have bowed and sat down, the Master says, laughing: "I went to take some food from the shelf. I had my hand on it when a lizard fell, and I let go at once." Everyone laughs.