d the news when I fell
into the hands of that white Regiment with their Bull!'

'That was foolishness.' Mahbub scowled. 'News is not meant to be
thrown about like dung-cakes, but used sparingly--like bhang.'

'So I think now, and moreover, it did me no sort of good. But that was
very long ago,' he made as to brush it all away with a thin brown
hand--'and since then, and especially in the nights under the punkah at
the madrissah, I have thought very greatly.'

'Is it permitted to ask whither the Heaven-born's thought might have
led?' said Mahbub, with an elaborate sarcasm, smoothing his scarlet
beard.

'It is permitted,' said Kim, and threw back the very tone. 'They say
at Nucklao that no Sahib must tell a black man that he has made a
fault.'

Mahbub's hand shot into his bosom, for to call a Pathan a 'black man'
[kala admi] is a blood-insult. Then he remembered and laughed. 'Speak,
Sahib. Thy black man hears.'

'But,' said Kim, 'I am not a Sahib, and I say I made a fault to curse
thee, Mahbub Ali, on that day at Umballa when I thought I was betrayed
by a Pathan. I was senseless; for I was but newly caught, and I wished
to kill that low-caste drummer-boy. I say now, Hajji, that it was well
done; and I see my road all clear before me to a good service. I will
stay in the madrissah till I am ripe.'

'Well said. Especially are distances and numbers and the manner of
using compasses to be learned in that game. One waits in the Hills
above to show thee.'

'I will learn their teaching upon a condition--that my time is given to
me without question when the madrissah is shut. Ask that for me of the
Colonel.'

'But why not ask the Colonel in the Sahibs' tongue?'

'The Colonel is the servant of the Government. He is sent hither and
yon at a word, and must consider his own advancement. (See how much I
have already learned at Nucklao!) Moreover, the Colonel I know since
three months only. I have known one Mahbub Ali for six years. So! To
the madrissah I will go. At the madrissah I will learn. In the
madrissah I will be a Sahib. But when the madrissah is shut, then must
I be free and go among my people. Otherwise I die!'

'And who are thy people, Friend of all the World?'

'This great and beautiful land,' said Kim, waving his paw round the
little clay-walled room where the oil-lamp in its niche burned heavily
through the tobacco-smoke. 'And, further, I would see my lama again.
And, further, I nee