‘No,’ said Kim.  ’Thy man is rather yagi [bad-tempered] than yogi [a holy man].  But this priest is new.  The Sahib in the Wonder House has talked to him like a brother.  O my mother, fill me this bowl.  He waits.’

’That bowl indeed!  That cow-bellied basket!  Thou hast as much grace as the holy bull of Shiv.  He has taken the best of a basket of onions already, this morn; and forsooth, I must fill thy bowl.  He comes here again.’

The huge, mouse-coloured Brahmini bull of the ward was 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.