Kim

For the rest of the day Kim found himself an object of distinguished

consideration among a few hundred white men. The story of his

appearance in camp, the discovery of his parentage, and his prophecy,

had lost nothing in the telling. A big, shapeless white woman on a

pile of bedding asked him mysteriously whether he thought her husband

would come back from the war. Kim reflected gravely, and said that he

would, and the woman gave him food. In many respects, this big

procession that played music at intervals--this crowd that talked and

laughed so easily--resembled a festival in Lahore city. So far, there

was no sign of hard work, and he resolved to lend the spectacle his

patronage. At evening there came out to meet them bands of music, and

played the Mavericks into camp near Umballa railway station. That was

an interesting night. Men of other regiments came to visit the

Mavericks. The Mavericks went visiting on their own account. Their

pickets hurried forth to bring them back, met pickets of strange

regiments on the same duty; and, after a while, the bugles blew madly

for more pickets with officers to control the tumult. The Mavericks

had a reputation for liveliness to live up to. But they fell in on the

platform next morning in perfect shape and condition; and Kim, left

behind with the sick, women, and boys, found himself shouting farewells

excitedly as the trains drew away. Life as a Sahib was amusing so far;

but he touched it with a cautious hand. Then they marched him back in

charge of a drummer-boy to empty, lime-washed barracks, whose floors

were covered with rubbish and string and paper, and whose ceilings gave

back his lonely footfall. Native-fashion, he curled himself up on a

stripped cot and went to sleep. An angry man stumped down the veranda,

woke him up, and said he was a schoolmaster. This was enough for Kim,

and he retired into his shell. He could just puzzle out the various

English Police notices in Lahore city, because they affected his

comfort; and among the many guests of the woman who looked after him

had been a queer German who painted scenery for the Parsee travelling

theatre. He told Kim that he had been 'on the barricades in

'Forty-eight,' and therefore--at least that was how it struck Kim--he

would teach the boy to write in return for food. Kim had been kicked

as far as single letters, but did not think well of them.

'I do not know anything. Go away!' said Kim, scenting evil. Hereupon

the man caught him by the ear, dragged him to a room in a far-off wing

where a dozen drummer-boys were sitting on forms, and told him to be

still if he could do nothing else. This he managed very successfully.

The man explained something or other with white lines on a black board

for at least half an hour, and Kim continued his interrupted nap. He

much disapproved of the present aspect of affairs, for this was the

very school and discipline he had spent two-thirds of his young life in

avoiding. Suddenly a beautiful idea occurred to him, and he wondered

that he had not thought of it before.

The man dismissed them, and first to spring through the veranda into

the open sunshine was Kim.

''Ere, you! 'Alt! Stop!' said a high voice at his heels. 'I've got

to look after you. My orders are not to let you out of my sight. Where

are you goin'?'

It was the drummer-boy who had been hanging round him all the

forenoon--a fat and freckled person of about fourteen, and Kim loathed

him from the soles of his boots to his cap-ribbons.

'To the bazar--to get sweets--for you,' said Kim, after thought.

'Well, the bazar's out o' bounds. If we go there we'll get a

dressing-down. You come back.'

'How near can we go?' Kim did not know what bounds meant, but he

wished to be polite--for the present.

''Ow near? 'Ow far, you mean! We can go as far as that tree down the

road.'

'Then I will go there.'

'All right. I ain't goin'. It's too 'ot. I can watch you from 'ere.

It's no good your runnin' away. If you did, they'd spot you by your

clothes. That's regimental stuff you're wearin'. There ain't a picket

in Umballa wouldn't 'ead you back quicker than you started out.'

This did not impress Kim as much as the knowledge that his raiment

would tire him out if he tried to run. He slouched to the tree at the

corner of a bare road leading towards the bazar, and eyed the natives

passing. Most of them were barrack-servants of the lowest caste. Kim

hailed a sweeper, who promptly retorted with a piece of unnecessary

insolence, in the natural belief that the European boy could not follow

it. The low, quick answer undeceived him. Kim put his fettered soul

into it, thankful for the late chance to abuse somebody in the tongue

he knew best. 'And now, go to the nearest letter-writer in the bazar

and tell him to come here. I would write a letter.'

'But--but what manner of white man's son art thou to need a bazar

letter-writer? Is there not a schoolmaster in the barracks?'

'Ay; and Hell is full of the same sort. Do my order, you--you Od! Thy

mother was married under a basket! Servant of Lal Beg' (Kim knew the

God of the sweepers), 'run on my business or we will talk again.'

The sweeper shuffled off in haste. 'There is a white boy by the

barracks waiting under a tree who is not a white boy,' he stammered to

the first bazar letter-writer he came across. 'He needs thee.'

'Will he pay?' said the spruce scribe, gathering up his desk and pens

and sealing-wax all in order.

'I do not know. He is not like other boys. Go and see. It is well

worth.'

Kim danced with impatience when the slim young Kayeth hove in sight.

As soon as his voice could carry he cursed him volubly.

'First I will take my pay,' the letter-writer said. 'Bad words have

made the price higher. But who art thou, dressed in that fashion, to

speak in this fashion?'

'Aha! That is in the letter which thou shalt write. Never was such a

tale. But I am in no haste. Another writer will serve me. Umballa

city is as full of them as is Lahore.'

'Four annas,' said the writer, sitting down and spreading his cloth in

the shade of a deserted barrack-wing.

Mechanically Kim squatted beside him--squatted as only the natives

can--in spite of the abominable clinging trousers.

The writer regarded him sideways.

'That is the price to ask of Sahibs,' said Kim. 'Now fix me a true

one.'

'An anna and a half. How do I know, having written the letter, that

thou wilt not run away?'

I must not go beyond this tree, and there is also the stamp to be

considered.'

'I get no commission on the price of the stamp. Once more, what manner

of white boy art thou?'

'That shall be said in the letter, which is to Mahbub Ali, the

horse-dealer in the Kashmir Serai, at Lahore. He is my friend.'

'Wonder on wonder!' murmured the letter-writer, dipping a reed in the

inkstand. 'To be written in Hindi?'

'Assuredly. To Mahbub Ali then. Begin! I have come down with the old

man as far as Umballa in the train. At Umballa I carried the news of

the bay mare's pedigree.' After what he had seen in the garden, he was

not going to write of white stallions.

'Slower a little. What has a bay mare to do ... Is it Mahbub Ali, the

great dealer?'

'Who else? I have been in his service. Take more ink. Again. As the

order was, so I did it. We then went on foot towards Benares, but on

the third day we found a certain regiment. Is that down?'

'Ay, pulton,' murmured the writer, all ears.