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of a telegraph-pole flashing past the train. 'But later, I was
cramped and desired to walk, as I am used.'

'And thou art sure of thy road?' said the Curator.

'Oh, for that one but asks a question and pays money, and the
appointed persons despatch all to the appointed place. That much
I knew in my lamassery from sure report,' said the lama proudly.

'And when dost thou go?' The Curator smiled at the mixture of
old-world piety and modern progress that is the note of India
today.

'As soon as may be. I follow the places of His life till I come
to the River of the Arrow. There is, moreover, a written paper of
the hours of the trains that go south.'

'And for food?' Lamas, as a rule, have good store of money
somewhere about them, but the Curator wished to make sure.

'For the journey, I take up the Master's begging-bowl. Yes. Even
as He went so go I, forsaking the ease of my monastery. There was
with me when I left the hills a chela [disciple] who begged for
me as the Rule demands, but halting in Kulu awhile a fever took
him and he died. I have now no chela, but I will take the alms-
bowl and thus enable the charitable to acquire merit.' He nodded
his head valiantly. Learned doctors of a lamassery do not beg,
but the lama was an enthusiast in this quest.

'Be it so,' said the Curator, smiling. 'Suffer me now to acquire
merit. We be craftsmen together, thou and I. Here is a new book
of white English paper: here be sharpened pencils two and three -
thick and thin, all good for a scribe. Now lend me thy spectacles.'

The Curator looked through them. They were heavily scratched, but
the power was almost exactly that of his own pair, which he slid
into the lama's hand, saying: 'Try these.'

'A feather! A very feather upon the face.' The old man turned his
head delightedly and wrinkled up his nose. 'How scarcely do I
feel them! How clearly do I see!'

'They be bilaur - crystal - and will never scratch. May they
help thee to thy River, for they are thine.'

'I will take them and the pencils and the white note-book,' said
the lama, 'as a sign of friendship between priest and priest -
and now -' He fumbled at his belt, detached the open-work iron
pincers, and laid it on the Curator's table. 'That is for a
memory between thee and me - my pencase. It is something old -
even as I am.'

It was a piece of ancient design, Chinese, of an iron that is not
smelted these days; and the collector's heart in the Curator's
bosom had gone out to it from the first. For no persuasion would
the lama resume his gift.

'When I return, having found the River, I will bring thee a
written picture of the Padma Samthora such as I used to make on
silk at the lamassery. Yes - and of the Wheel of Life,' he
chuckled, 'for we be craftsmen together, thou and I.'

The Curator would have detained him: they are few in the world
who still have the secret of the conventional brush-pen Buddhist
pictures which are, as it were, half written and half drawn.

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