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