The central character in this book is the financial expert Margayya, who offers advice to his fellow townspeople from under his position at the banyan tree.

The protagonist of the novel, Margayya begins his career as a petty money-lender doing his business under the Banyan tree, in front of the Central Co-operative Land Mortgage Bank in Malgudi.

Balu, his spoilt-child throws his account book, containing all the entries of his transactions with his clients into the gutter, and it becomes impossible for Margayya to resume his old practice.

He shows his horoscope to an astrologer and is assured that good times will come for him if he offers puja to Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth.

The puja is done for forty days, with ash from a red lotus and ghee made of milk from a grey cow.

Madan Lal, “a man from the North”, reads the manuscript and agrees to publish it on a fifty-fifty partnership basis.

He left for Madras, discovered through the good offices of a fellow traveller a police inspector in plain clothes that his son was not really dead, traced the boy and brought him home.

He wanted to marry him to a girl named Brinda, the daughter of the owner of a tea estate in Memphis Hills.

When a pundit, after an honest study, declared that the horoscopes of Balu and Brinda did not match, he was curtly dismissed with a fee of one rupee.

Another astrologer, whom Dr Pal found, gave it in writing that the two horoscopes matched perfectly and was paid Rs.

Margayya, wishing to draw Dr Pal away from his son, sought his help in attracting deposits from Black Marketers on the promise of interest of 29%.

He was on the right side of the police, contributed to the War Fund when driven to do so, and worked day and night with his accounts and money bags, though his wife was unhappy at his straining himself so much.