cular. Kim watched, listened,
and approved. This was not insipid, single-word talk of drummer-boys.
It dealt with a life he knew and in part understood. The atmosphere
suited him, and he throve by inches. They gave him a white drill suit
as the weather warmed, and he rejoiced in the new-found bodily comforts
as he rejoiced to use his sharpened mind over the tasks they set him.
His quickness would have delighted an English master; but at St
Xavier's they know the first rush of minds developed by sun and
surroundings, as they know the half-collapse that sets in at twenty-two
or twenty-three.

None the less he remembered to hold himself lowly. When tales were
told of hot nights, Kim did not sweep the board with his reminiscences;
for St Xavier's looks down on boys who 'go native all-together.' One
must never forget that one is a Sahib, and that some day, when
examinations are passed, one will command natives. Kim made a note of
this, for he began to understand where examinations led.

Then came the holidays from August to October--the long holidays
imposed by the heat and the Rains. Kim was informed that he would go
north to some station in the hills behind Umballa, where Father Victor
would arrange for him.

'A barrack-school?' said Kim, who had asked many questions and thought
more.

'Yes, I suppose so,' said the master. 'It will not do you any harm to
keep you out of mischief. You can go up with young De Castro as far as
Delhi.'

Kim considered it in every possible light. He had been diligent, even
as the Colonel advised. A boy's holiday was his own property--of so
much the talk of his companions had advised him,--and a barrack-school
would be torment after St Xavier's. Moreover--this was magic worth
anything else--he could write. In three months he had discovered how
men can speak to each other without a third party, at the cost of half
an anna and a little knowledge. No word had come from the lama, but
there remained the Road. Kim yearned for the caress of soft mud
squishing up between the toes, as his mouth watered for mutton stewed
with butter and cabbages, for rice speckled with strong scented
cardamoms, for the saffron-tinted rice, garlic and onions, and the
forbidden greasy sweetmeats of the bazars. They would feed him raw
beef on a platter at the barrack-school, and he must smoke by stealth.
But again, he was a Sahib and was at St Xavier's, and that pig Mahbub
Ali ... No, he would not tes