retaries of charitable societies could
not see the beauty of it. His nickname through the wards was 'Little
Friend of all the World'; and very often, being lithe and
inconspicuous, he executed commissions by night on the crowded
housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion. It was
intrigue,--of course he knew that much, as he had known all evil since
he could speak,--but what he loved was the game for its own sake--the
stealthy prowl through the dark gullies and lanes, the crawl up a
waterpipe, the sights and sounds of the women's world on the flat
roofs, and the headlong flight from housetop to housetop under cover of
the hot dark. Then there were holy men, ash-smeared fakirs by their
brick shrines under the trees at the riverside, with whom he was quite
familiar--greeting them as they returned from begging-tours, and, when
no one was by, eating from the same dish. The woman who looked after
him insisted with tears that he should wear European clothes--trousers,
a shirt and a battered hat. Kim found it easier to slip into Hindu or
Mohammedan garb when engaged on certain businesses. One of the young
men of fashion--he who was found dead at the bottom of a well on the
night of the earthquake--had once given him a complete suit of Hindu
kit, the costume of a lowcaste street boy, and Kim stored it in a
secret place under some baulks in Nila Ram's timber-yard, beyond the
Punjab High Court, where the fragrant deodar logs lie seasoning after
they have driven down the Ravi. When there was business or frolic
afoot, Kim would use his properties, returning at dawn to the veranda,
all tired out from shouting at the heels of a marriage procession, or
yelling at a Hindu festival. Sometimes there was food in the house,
more often there was not, and then Kim went out again to eat with his
native friends.

As he drummed his heels against Zam-Zammah he turned now and again from
his king-of-the-castle game with little Chota Lal and Abdullah the
sweetmeat-seller's son, to make a rude remark to the native policeman
on guard over rows of shoes at the Museum door. The big Punjabi grinned
tolerantly: he knew Kim of old. So did the water-carrier, sluicing
water on the dry road from his goat-skin bag. So did Jawahir Singh,
the Museum carpenter, bent over new packing-cases. So did everybody in
sight except the peasants from the country, hurrying up to the Wonder
House to view the things that men made in their own province and
e