ild, thou art beyond all dispute the most shameless son of Shaitan
that I have ever known to take up a poor girl's time with this play,
and then to say: "Is not the jest enough?" Thou wilt go very far in
this world.' She gave the dancing-girls' salutation in mockery.

'All one. Make haste and rough-cut my head.' Kim shifted from foot to
foot, his eyes ablaze with mirth as he thought of the fat days before
him. He gave the girl four annas, and ran down the stairs in the
likeness of a low-caste Hindu boy--perfect in every detail. A cookshop
was his next point of call, where he feasted in extravagance and greasy
luxury.

On Lucknow station platform he watched young De Castro, all covered
with prickly-heat, get into a second-class compartment. Kim patronized
a third, and was the life and soul of it. He explained to the company
that he was assistant to a juggler who had left him behind sick with
fever, and that he would pick up his master at Umballa. As the
occupants of the carriage changed, he varied this tale, or adorned it
with all the shoots of a budding fancy, the more rampant for being held
off native speech so long. In all India that night was no human being
so joyful as Kim. At Umballa he got out and headed eastward, plashing
over the sodden fields to the village where the old soldier lived.

About this time Colonel Creighton at Simla was advised from Lucknow by
wire that young O'Hara had disappeared. Mahbub Ali was in town selling
horses, and to him the Colonel confided the affair one morning
cantering round Annandale racecourse.

'Oh, that is nothing,' said the horse-dealer. 'Men are like horses. At
certain times they need salt, and if that salt is not in the mangers
they will lick it up from the earth. He has gone back to the Road
again for a while. The madrissak wearied him. I knew it would.
Another time, I will take him upon the Road myself. Do not be
troubled, Creighton Sahib. It is as though a polo-pony, breaking
loose, ran out to learn the game alone.'

'Then he is not dead, think you?'

'Fever might kill him. I do not fear for the boy otherwise. A monkey
does not fall among trees.'

Next morning, on the same course, Mahbub's stallion ranged alongside
the Colonel.

'It is as I had thought,' said the horse-dealer. 'He has come through
Umballa at least, and there he has written a letter to me, having
learned in the bazar that I was here.'

'Read,' said the Colonel, with a sigh o