, lime and pan-leaf; but it was filled
with little tabloid-bottles.

'That is reward of merit for your performance in character of that holy
man. You see, you are so young you think you will last for ever and
not take care of your body. It is great nuisance to go sick in the
middle of business. I am fond of drugs myself, and they are handy to
cure poor people too. These are good Departmental drugs--quinine and
so on. I give it you for souvenir. Now good-bye. I have urgent
private business here by the roadside.'

He slipped out noiselessly as a cat, on the Umballa road, hailed a
passing cart and jingled away, while Kim, tongue-tied, twiddled the
brass betel-box in his hands.

The record of a boy's education interests few save his parents, and, as
you know, Kim was an orphan. It is written in the books of St Xavier's
in Partibus that a report of Kim's progress was forwarded at the end of
each term to Colonel Creighton and to Father Victor, from whose hands
duly came the money for his schooling. It is further recorded in the
same books that he showed a great aptitude for mathematical studies as
well as map-making, and carried away a prize (The Life of Lord
Lawrence, tree-calf, two vols., nine rupees, eight annas) for
proficiency therein; and the same term played in St Xavier's eleven
against the Alighur Mohammedan College, his age being fourteen years
and ten months. He was also re-vaccinated (from which we may assume
that there had been another epidemic of smallpox at Lucknow) about the
same time. Pencil notes on the edge of an old muster-roll record that
he was punished several times for 'conversing with improper persons',
and it seems that he was once sentenced to heavy pains for 'absenting
himself for a day in the company of a street beggar'. That was when he
got over the gate and pleaded with the lama through a whole day down
the banks of the Gumti to accompany him on the Road next holidays--for
one month--for a little week; and the lama set his face as a flint
against it, averring that the time had not yet come. Kim's business,
said the old man as they ate cakes together, was to get all the wisdom
of the Sahibs and then he would see. The Hand of Friendship must in
some way have averted the Whip of Calamity, for six weeks later Kim
seems to have passed an examination in elementary surveying 'with great
credit', his age being fifteen years and eight months. From this date
the record is silent. His na