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shouldering his way through the many-coloured crowd, a stolen
plantain hanging out of his mouth. He headed straight for the
shop, well knowing his privileges as a sacred beast, lowered his
head, and puffed heavily along the line of baskets ere making his
choice. Up flew Kim's hard little heel and caught him on his
moist blue nose. He snorted indignantly, and walked away across
the tram-rails, his hump quivering with rage.

'See! I have saved more than the bowl will cost thrice over. Now,
mother, a little rice and some dried fish atop - yes, and some
vegetable curry.'

A growl came out of the back of the shop, where a man lay.

'He drove away the bull,' said the woman in an undertone. 'It is
good to give to the poor.' She took the bowl and returned it full
of hot rice.

'But my yogi is not a cow,' said Kim gravely, making a hole with
his fingers in the top of the mound. 'A little curry is good, and
a fried cake, and a morsel of conserve would please him, I
think.'

'It is a hole as big as thy head,' said the woman fretfully. But
she filled it, none the less, with good, steaming vegetable
curry, clapped a fried cake atop, and a morsel of clarified
butter on the cake, dabbed a lump of sour tamarind conserve at
the side; and Kim looked at the load lovingly.

'That is good. When I am in the bazar the bull shall not come to
this house. He is a bold beggar-man.'

'And thou?' laughed the woman. 'But speak well of bulls. Hast
thou not told me that some day a Red Bull will come out of a
field to help thee? Now hold all straight and ask for the holy
man's blessing upon me. Perhaps, too, he knows a cure for my
daughter's sore eyes. Ask. him that also, O thou Little Friend
of all the World.'

But Kim had danced off ere the end of the sentence, dodging
pariah dogs and hungry acquaintances.

'Thus do we beg who know the way of it,' said he proudly to the
lama, who opened his eyes at the contents of the bowl. 'Eat now
and - I will eat with thee. Ohe, bhisti!' he called to the water-
carrier, sluicing the crotons by the Museum. 'Give water here. We
men are thirsty.'

'We men!' said the bhisti, laughing. 'Is one skinful enough for
such a pair? Drink, then, in the name of the Compassionate.'

He loosed a thin stream into Kim's hands, who drank native fashion;
but the lama must needs pull out a cup from his inexhaustible
upper draperies and drink ceremonially.

'Pardesi [a foreigner],' Kim explained, as the old man delivered
in an unknown tongue what was evidently a blessing.

They ate together in great content, clearing the beggingbowl.
Then the lama took snuff from a portentous wooden snuff-gourd,
fingered his rosary awhile, and so dropped into the easy sleep of
age, as the shadow of Zam-Zammah grew long.

Kim loafed over to the nearest tobacco-seller, a rather lively
young Mohammedan woman, and begged a rank cigar of the brand that
they sell to students of the Punjab University who copy English

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