'What is his business?'

'God knows. He is always buying horses which he cannot ride, and
asking riddles about the works of God--such as plants and stones and
the customs of people. The dealers call him the father of fools,
because he is so easily cheated about a horse. Mahbub Ali says he is
madder than most other Sahibs.'

'Oh!' said Kim, and departed. His training had given him some small
knowledge of character, and he argued that fools are not given
information which leads to calling out eight thousand men besides guns.
The Commander-in-Chief of all India does not talk, as Kim had heard him
talk, to fools. Nor would Mahbub Ali's tone have changed, as it did
every time he mentioned the Colonel's name, if the Colonel had been a
fool. Consequently--and this set Kim to skipping--there was a mystery
somewhere, and Mahbub Ali probably spied for the Colonel much as Kim
had spied for Mahbub. And, like the horse-dealer, the Colonel
evidently respected people who did not show themselves to be too clever.

He rejoiced that he had not betrayed his knowledge of the Colonel's
house; and when, on his return to barracks, he discovered that no
cheroot-case had been left behind, he beamed with delight. Here was a
man after his own heart--a tortuous and indirect person playing a
hidden game. Well, if he could be a fool, so could Kim.

He showed nothing of his mind when Father Victor, for three long
mornings, discoursed to him of an entirely new set of Gods and
Godlings--notably of a Goddess called Mary, who, he gathered, was one
with Bibi Miriam of Mahbub Ali's theology. He betrayed no emotion
when, after the lecture, Father Victor dragged him from shop to shop
buying articles of outfit, nor when envious drummer-boys kicked him
because he was going to a superior school did he complain, but awaited
the play of circumstances with an interested soul. Father Victor, good
man, took him to the station, put him into an empty second-class next
to Colonel Creighton's first, and bade him farewell with genuine
feeling.

'They'll make a man o' you, O'Hara, at St Xavier's--a white man, an', I
hope, a good man. They know all about your comin', an' the Colonel
will see that ye're not lost or mislaid anywhere on the road. I've
given you a notion of religious matters,--at least I hope so,--and
you'll remember, when they ask you your religion, that you're a
Cath'lic. Better say Roman Cath'lic, tho' I'm not fond of the word.'

K