’Because he is so fond of me.  Suppose you were fond of someone, and you saw someone come, and the man you were fond of was more pleased with him than he was with you, what would you do?’

Kim thought.  Lurgan repeated the sentence slowly in the vernacular.  ‘I should not poison that man,’ said Kim reflectively, ’but I should beat that boy — if that boy was fond of my man.  But first, I would ask that boy if it were true.’

‘Ah!  He thinks everyone must be fond of me.’

‘Then I think he is a fool.’

‘Hearest thou?’ said Lurgan Sahib to the shaking shoulders.  ’The Sahib’s son thinks thou art a little fool.  Come out, and next time thy heart is troubled, do not try white arsenic quite so openly.  Surely the Devil Dasim was lord of our table-cloth that day!  It might have made me ill, child, and then a stranger would have guarded the jewels.  Come!’

The child, heavy-eyed with much weeping, crept out from behind the bale and flung himself passionately at Lurgan Sahib’s feet, with an extravagance of remorse that impressed even Kim.

’I will look into the ink-pools — I will faithfully guard the jewels!  Oh, my Father and my Mother, send him away!’ He indicated Kim with a backward jerk of his bare heel.

’Not yet — not yet.  In a little while he will go away again.  But now he is at school — at a new madrissah — and thou shalt be his teacher.  Play the Play of the Jewels against him.  I will keep tally.’

The child dried his tears at once, and dashed to the back of the shop, whence he returned with a copper tray.

‘Give me!’ he said to Lurgan Sahib.  ’Let them come from thy hand, for he may say that I knew them before.’

‘Gently — gently,’ the man replied, and from a drawer under the table dealt a half-handful of clattering trifles into the tray.

‘Now,’ said the child, waving an old newspaper.  ’Look on them as long as thou wilt, stranger.  Count and, if need be, handle.  One look is enough for me.’  He turned his back proudly.

‘But what is the game?’

’When thou hast counted and handled and art sure that thou canst remember them all, I cover them with this paper, and thou must tell over the tally to Lurgan Sahib.  I will write mine.’

‘Oah!’ The instinct of competition waked in his breast.  He bent over the tray.  There were but fifteen stones on it.  ‘That is easy,’ he said after a minute.  The child slipped the paper over the winking jewels and scribbled in a native account-book.

’There are under that paper five blue stones — one big, one smaller, and three small,’ said Kim, all in haste.  ’There are four green stones, and one with a hole in it; there is one yellow stone that I can see through, and one like a pipe-stem.  There are two red stones, and — and — I made the count fifteen, but two I have forgotten.  No!  Give me time.  One was of ivory, little and brownish; and — and — give me time...’