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      Chapter VII

       Table of Contents

      Unto whose use the pregnant suns are poised

       With idiot moons and stars retracting stars?

       Creep thou betweene—thy coming's all unnoised.

       Heaven hath her high, as earth her baser, wars.

       Heir to these tumults, this affright, that fray

       (By Adam's, fathers', own, sin bound alway);

       Peer up, draw out thy horoscope and say

       Which planet mends thy threadbare fate or mars!

       Sir John Christie.

      In the afternoon the red-faced schoolmaster told Kim that he had been 'struck off the strength,' which conveyed no meaning to him till he was ordered to go away and play. Then he ran to the bazar, and found the young letter-writer to whom he owed a stamp.

      'Now I pay,' said Kim royally, 'and now I need another letter to be written.'

      'Mahbub Ali is in Umballa,' said the writer jauntily. He was, by virtue of his office, a bureau of general misinformation.

      'This is not to Mahbub, but to a priest. Take thy pen and write quickly. "To Teshoo Lama, the holy one from Bhotiyal seeking for a River, who is now in the Temple of the Tirthankers at Benares." Take more ink! "In three days I am to go down to Nucklao to the school at Nucklao. The name of the school is Xavier. I do not know where that school is, but it is at Nucklao."

      'But I know Nucklao,' the writer interrupted. 'I know the school.'

      'Tell him where it is, and I give half an anna.'

      The reed pen scratched busily. 'He cannot mistake.' The man lifted his head. 'Who watches us across the street?'

      Kim looked up hurriedly and saw Colonel Creighton in tennis-flannels.

      'Oh, that is some Sahib who knows the fat priest in the barracks. He is beckoning me.'

      'What dost thou?' said the Colonel, when Kim trotted up.

      'I—I am not running away. I send a letter to my Holy One at Benares.'

      'I had not thought of that. Hast thou said that I take thee to Lucknow?'

      'Nay, I have not. Read the letter, if there be a doubt.'

      'Then why hast thou left out my name in writing to that Holy One?' The Colonel smiled a queer smile. Kim took his courage in both hands.

      'It was said once to me that it is inexpedient to write the names of strangers concerned in any matter, because by the naming of names many good plans are brought to confusion.'

      'Thou hast been well taught,' the Colonel replied, and Kim flushed. 'I have left my cheroot-case in the padre's veranda. Bring it to my house this even.'

      'Where is the house?' said Kim. His quick wit told him that he was being tested in some fashion or another, and he stood on guard.

      'Ask any one in the big bazar.' The Colonel walked on.

      'He has forgotten his cheroot-case,' said Kim, returning. 'I must bring it to him this evening. That is all my letter except, thrice over, "Come to me! Come to me! Come to me!" Now I will pay for a stamp and put it in the post.' He rose to go, and as an afterthought asked, 'Who is that angry-faced Sahib who lost the cheroot-case?'

      'Oh, he is only Creighton Sahib—a very foolish Sahib, who is a Colonel Sahib without a regiment.'

      '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 all 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.'

      Kim lit a rank cigarette—he had been careful to buy a stock in the bazar—and lay down to think. This solitary passage was very different from that joyful down-journey