erk of the wrist; while Kim jeered at him for
being so drugged as to have lost the ringed fire-tongs which are the
Saddhu's distinguishing mark. The lama, deep in meditation, stared
straight before him; and the farmer, glancing furtively, gathered up
his belongings.

'Nothing here but a parcel of holy-bolies,' said the Englishman aloud,
and passed on amid a ripple of uneasiness; for native police mean
extortion to the native all India over.

'The trouble now,' whispered E23, 'lies in sending a wire as to the
place where I hid that letter I was sent to find. I cannot go to the
tar-office in this guise.'

'Is it not enough I have saved thy neck?'

'Not if the work be left unfinished. Did never the healer of sick
pearls tell thee so? Comes another Sahib! Ah!'

This was a tallish, sallowish District Superintendent of Police--belt,
helmet, polished spurs and all--strutting and twirling his dark
moustache.

'What fools are these Police Sahibs!' said Kim genially.

E23 glanced up under his eyelids. 'It is well said,' he muttered in a
changed voice. 'I go to drink water. Keep my place.'

He blundered out almost into the Englishman's arms, and was bad-worded
in clumsy Urdu.

'Tum mut? You drunk? You mustn't bang about as though Delhi station
belonged to you, my friend.'

E23, not moving a muscle of his countenance, answered with a stream of
the filthiest abuse, at which Kim naturally rejoiced. It reminded him
of the drummer-boys and the barrack-sweepers at Umballa in the terrible
time of his first schooling.

'My good fool,' the Englishman drawled. 'Nickle-jao! Go back to your
carriage.'

Step by step, withdrawing deferentially and dropping his voice, the
yellow Saddhu clomb back to the carriage, cursing the D.S.P. to
remotest posterity, by--here Kim almost jumped--by the curse of the
Queen's Stone, by the writing under the Queen's Stone, and by an
assortment of Gods with wholly, new names.

'I don't know what you're saying,'--the Englishman flushed
angrily--'but it's some piece of blasted impertinence. Come out of
that!'

E23, affecting to misunderstand, gravely produced his ticket, which the
Englishman wrenched angrily from his hand.

'Oh, zoolum! What oppression!' growled the Jat from his corner. 'All
for the sake of a jest too.' He had been grinning at the freedom of
the Saddhu's tongue. 'Thy charms do not work well today, Holy One!'

The Saddhu followed the policeman, fawning and sup